The Great Shadow

Doyle, Arthur Conan

Published: 1892

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About Doyle:
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July
1930) was a Scottish author most noted for his stories about
the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered
a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and the adven-
tures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose
other works include science fiction stories, historical novels,
plays and romances, poetry, and non-fiction. Conan was origin-
ally a given name, but Doyle used it as part of his surname in
his later years. Source: Wikipedia

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Chapter 1
The Night of the Beacons
It is strange to me, Jock Calder of West Inch, to feel that
though now, in the very centre of the nineteenth century, I am
but five-and-fifty years of age, and though it is only once in a
week perhaps that my wife can pluck out a little grey bristle
from over my ear, yet I have lived in a time when the thoughts
and the ways of men were as different as though it were anoth-
er planet from this. For when I walk in my fields I can see,
down Berwick way, the little fluffs of white smoke which tell
me of this strange new hundred-legged beast, with coals for
food and a thousand men in its belly, for ever crawling over the
border. On a shiny day I can see the glint of the brass work as
it takes the curve near Corriemuir; and then, as I look out to
sea, there is the same beast again, or a dozen of them maybe,
leaving a trail of black in the air and of white in the water, and
swimming in the face of the wind as easily as a salmon up the
Tweed. Such a sight as that would have struck my good old
father speechless with wrath as well as surprise; for he was so
stricken with the fear of offending the Creator that he was
chary of contradicting Nature, and always held the new thing
to be nearly akin to the blasphemous. As long as God made the
horse, and a man down Birmingham way the engine, my good
old dad would have stuck by the saddle and the spurs.
But he would have been still more surprised had he seen the
peace and kindliness which reigns now in the hearts of men,
and the talk in the papers and at the meetings that there is to
be no more war — save, of course, with blacks and such like.
For when he died we had been fighting with scarce a break,
save only during two short years, for very nearly a quarter of a
century. Think of it, you who live so quietly and peacefully
now! Babies who were born in the war grew to be bearded men

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with babies of their own, and still the war continued. Those
who had served and fought in their stalwart prime grew stiff
and bent, and yet the ships and the armies were struggling. it
was no wonder that folk came at last to look upon it as the nat-
ural state, and thought how queer it must seem to be at peace.
During that long time we fought the Dutch, we fought the
Danes, we fought the Spanish, we fought the Turks, we fought
the Americans, we fought the Monte-Videans, until it seemed
that in this universal struggle no race was too near of kin, or
too far away, to be drawn into the quarrel. But most of all it
was the French whom we fought, and the man whom of all oth-
ers we loathed and feared and admired was the great Captain
who ruled them.
It was very well to draw pictures of him, and sing songs
about him, and make as though he were an impostor; but I can
tell you that the fear of that man hung like a black shadow over
all Europe, and that there was a time when the glint of a fire at
night upon the coast would set every woman upon her knees
and every man gripping for his musket. He had always won:
that was the terror of it. The Fates seemed to be behind him.
And now we knew that he lay upon the northern coast with a
hundred and fifty thousand veterans, and the boats for their
passage. But it is an old story, how a third of the grown folk of
our country took up arms, and how our little one-eyed, one-
armed man crushed their fleet. There was still to be a land of
free thinking and free speaking in Europe.
There was a great beacon ready on the hill by Tweedmouth,
built up of logs and tar-barrels; and I can well remember how,
night after night, I strained my eyes to see if it were ablaze. I
was only eight at the time, but it is an age when one takes a
grief to heart, and I felt as though the fate of the country hung
in some fashion upon me and my vigilance. And then one night
as I looked I suddenly saw a little flicker on the beacon hill — a
single red tongue of flame in the darkness. I remember how I
rubbed my eyes, and pinched myself, and rapped my knuckles
against the stone window-sill, to make sure that I was indeed
awake. And then the flame shot higher, and I saw the red quiv-
ering line upon the water between; and I dashed into the kit-
chen, screeching to my father that the French had crossed and
the Tweedmouth light was aflame. He had been talking to Mr.

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Mitchell, the law student from Edinburgh; and I can see him
now as he knocked his pipe out at the side of the fire and
looked at me from over the top of his horn spectacles.
"Are you sure, Jock?" says he.
"Sure as death!" I gasped.
He reached out his hand for the Bible upon the table, and
opened it upon his knee as though he meant to read to us; but
he shut it again in silence, and hurried out. We went too, the
law student and I, and followed him down to the gate which
opens out upon the highway. From there we could see the red
light of the big beacon, and the glimmer of a smaller one to the
north of us at Ayton. My mother came down with two plaids to
keep the chill from us, and we all stood there until, morning,
speaking little to each other, and that little in a whisper. The
road had more folk on it than ever passed along it at night be-
fore; for many of the yeomen up our way had enrolled them-
selves in the Berwick volunteer regiments, and were riding
now as fast as hoof could carry them for the muster. Some had
a stirrup cup or two before parting, and I cannot forget one
who tore past on a huge white horse, brandishing a great rusty
sword in the moonlight. They shouted to us as they passed that
the North Berwick Law fire was blazing, and that it was
thought that the alarm had come from Edinburgh Castle. There
were a few who galloped the other way, couriers for Edin-
burgh, and the laird's son, and Master Clayton, the deputy
sheriff, and such like. And among others there was one a fine
built, heavy man on a roan horse, who pulled up at our, gate
and asked some question about the road. He took off his hat to
ease himself, and I saw that he had a kindly long-drawn face,
and a great high brow that shot away up into tufts of sandy
hair.
"I doubt it's a false alarm," said he. "Maybe I'd ha' done well
to bide where I was; but now I 've come so far, I 'll break my
fast with the regiment."
He clapped spurs to his horse, and away he went down the
brae.
"I ken him weel," said our student, nodding after him. "He's a
lawyer in Edinburgh, and a braw hand at the stringin' of
verses. Wattie Scott is his name."

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 None of us had heard of it then; but it was not long before it
was the best known name in Scotland, and many a time we
thought of how he speered his way of us on the night of the
terror.
But early in the morning we had our minds set at ease. It was
grey and cold, and my mother had gone up to the house to
mask a pot of tea for us, when there came a gig down the road
with Dr. Horscroft of Ayton in it and his son Jim. The collar of
the doctor's brown coat came over his ears, and he looked in a
deadly black humour; for Jim, who was but fifteen years of age,
had trooped off to Berwick at the first alarm with his father's
new fowling piece. All night his dad had chased him, and now
there he was, a prisoner, with the barrel of the stolen gun
sticking out from behind the seat. He looked as sulky as his
father, with his hands thrust into his sidepockets, his brows
drawn down, and his lower lip thrusting out.
"It 's all a lie!" shouted the doctor as he passed. "There has
been no landing, and all the fools in Scotland have been gad-
ding about the roads for nothing."
His son Jim snarled something up at him on this, and his fath-
er struck him a blow with his clenched fist on the side of his
head, which sent the boy's chin forward upon his breast as
though he had been stunned. My father shook his head, for he
had a liking for Jim; but we all walked up to the house again,
nodding and blinking, and hardly able to keep our eyes open
now that we knew that all was safe, but with a thrill of joy at
our hearts such as I have only matched once or twice in my
lifetime.
Now all this has little enough to do with what I took my pen
up to tell about; but when a man has a good memory and little
skill, he cannot draw one thought from his mind without a
dozen others trailing out behind it. And yet, now that I come to
think of it, this had something to do with it after all; for Jim
Horscroft had so deadly a quarrel with his father, that he was
packed off to the Berwick Academy, and as my father had long
wished me to go there, he took advantage of this chance to
send me also.
But before I say a word about this school, I shall go back to
where I should have begun, and give you a hint as to who I am;
for it may be that these words of mine may be read by some

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folk beyond the border country who never heard of the Calders
of West Inch.
It has a brave sound, West Inch, but it is not a fine estate
with a braw house upon it, but only a great hard-bitten, wind-
swept sheep run, fringing off into links along the sea-shore,
where a frugal man might with hard work just pay his rent and
have butter instead of treacle on Sundays. In the centre there
is a grey-stoned slate-roofed house with a byre behind it, and
"1703" scrawled in stonework over the lintel of the door. There
for more than a hundred years our folk have lived, until, for all
their poverty, they came to take a good place among the
people; for in the country parts the old yeoman is often better
thought of than the new laird.
There was one queer thing about the house of West Inch. It
has been reckoned by engineers and other knowing folk that
the boundary line between the two countries ran right through
the middle of it, splitting our second-best bedroom into an Eng-
lish half and a Scotch half. Now the cot in which I always slept
was so placed that my head was to the north of the line and my
feet to the south of it. My friends say that if I had chanced to
lie the other way my hair might not have been so sandy, nor my
mind of so solemn a cast. This I know, that more than once in
my life, when my Scotch head could see no way out of a
danger, my good thick English legs have come to my help, and
carried me clear away. But at school I never heard the end of
this, for they would call me "Half-and-half" and "The Great Bri-
tain," and sometimes "Union Jack." When there was a battle
between the Scotch and English boys, one side would kick my
shins and the other cuff my ears, and then they would both
stop and laugh as though it were something funny.
At first I was very miserable at the Berwick Academy.
Birtwhistle was the first master, and Adams the second, and I
had no love for either of them. I was shy and backward by
nature, and slow at making a friend either among masters or
boys. It was nine miles as the crow flies, and eleven and a half
by road, from Berwick to West Inch, and my heart grew heavy
at the weary distance that separated me from my mother; for,
mark you, a lad of that age pretends that he has no need of his
mother's caresses, but ah, how sad he is when he is taken at
his word! At last I could stand it no longer, and I determined to

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run away from school and make my way home as fast as I
might. At the very last moment, however, I had the good for-
tune to win the praise and admiration of every one, from the
headmaster downwards, and to find my school life made very
pleasant and easy to me. And all this came of my falling by ac-
cident out of a second-floor window.
This was how it happened. One evening I had been kicked by
Ned Barton, who was the bully of the school; and this injury
coming on the top of all my other grievances, caused my little
cup to overflow. I vowed that night, as I buried my tear-stained
face beneath the blankets, that the next morning would either
find me at West Inch or well on the way to it. Our dormitory
was on the second floor, but I was a famous climber, and had a
fine head for heights. I used to think little, young as I was, of
swinging myself with a rope round my thigh off the West Inch
gable, and that stood three-and-fifty feet above the ground.
There was not much fear then but that I could make my way
out of Birtwhistle's dormitory. I waited a weary while until the
coughing and tossing had died away, and there was no sound
of wakefulness from the long line of wooden cots; then I very
softly rose, slipped on my clothes, took my shoes in my hand,
and walked tiptoe to the window. I opened the casement and
looked out. Underneath me lay the garden, and close by my
hand was the stout branch of a pear tree. An active lad could
ask no better ladder. Once in the garden I had but a five-foot
wall to get over, and then there was nothing but distance
between me and home. I took a firm grip of a branch with one
hand, placed my knee upon another one, and was about to
swing myself out of the window, when in a moment I was as si-
lent and as still as though I had been turned to stone.
There was a face looking at me from over the coping of the
wall. A chill of fear struck to my heart at its whiteness and its
stillness. The moon shimmered upon it, and the eye-balls
moved slowly from side to side, though I was hid from them be-
hind the screen of the pear tree. Then in a jerky fashion this
white face ascended, until the neck, shoulders, waist, and
knees of a man became visible. He sat himself down on the top
of the wall, and with a great heave he pulled up after him a boy
about my own size, who caught his breath from time to time as
though to choke down a sob. The man gave him a shake, with a

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few-rough whispered words, and then the two dropped togeth-
er down into the garden. I was still standing balanced with one
foot upon the bough and one upon the casement, not daring to
budge for fear of attracting their attention, for I could hear
them moving stealthily about in the shadow of the house. Sud-
denly, from immediately beneath my feet, I heard a low grating
noise and the sharp tinkle of falling glass.
"That's done it," said the man's eager whisper. "There is
room for you."
"But the edge is all jagged!" cried the other in a weak
quaver.
The fellow burst out into an oath that made my skin pringle.
"In with you, you cub," he snarled, "or ——"
I could not see what he did, but there was a short, quick gasp
of pain.
"I'll go! I 'll go!" cried the little lad.
But I heard no more, for my head suddenly swam. My heel
shot off the branch, I gave a dreadful yell, and came down,
with my ninety-five pounds of weight, right upon the bent back
of the burglar. If you ask me, I can only say that to this day I
am not quite certain whether it was an accident or whether I
designed it. It may be that while I was thinking of doing it
Chance settled the matter for me. The fellow was stooping with
his head forward thrusting the boy through a tiny window,
when I came down upon him just where the neck joins the
spine. He gave a kind of whistling cry, dropped upon his face,
and rolled three times over, drumming on the grass with his
heels. His little companion flashed off in the moonlight, and
was over the wall in a trice. As for me, I sat yelling at the pitch
of my lungs and nursing one of my legs, which felt as if a red-
hot ring were welded round it.
It was not long, as may be imagined, before the whole house-
hold, from the headmaster to the stable boy, were out in the
garden with lamps and lanterns. The matter was soon cleared:
the man carried off upon a shutter, and I borne in much state
and solemnity to a special bedroom, where the small bone of
my leg was set by Surgeon Purdie, the younger of the two
brothers of that name. As to the robber, it was found that his
legs were palsied, and the doctors were of two minds as to
whether he would recover the use of them or no; but the Law

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never gave them a chance of settling the matter, for he was
hanged after Carlyle assizes, some six weeks later. It was
proved that he was the most desperate rogue in the North of
England, for he had done three murders at the least, and there
were charges enough against him upon the sheet to have
hanged him ten times over.
Well now, I could not pass over my boyhood without telling
you about this, which was the most important thing that
happened to me. But I will go off on no more side tracks; for
when I think of all that is coming, I can see very well that I
shall have more than enough to do before I have finished. For
when a man has only his own little private tale to tell, it often
takes him all his time but when he gets mixed up in such great
matters as I shall have to speak about, then it is hard on him, if
he has not been brought up to it, to get it all set down to his
liking. But my memory is as good as ever, thank God, and I
shall try to get it all straight before I finish.
It was this business of the burglar that first made a friend-
ship between Jim Horscroft, the doctor's son, and me. He was
cock boy of the school from the day he came; for within the
hour he had thrown Barton, who had been cock before him,
right through the big black-board in the class-room. Jim always
ran to muscle and bone, and even then he was square and tall,
short of speech and long in the arm, much given to lounging
with his broad back against walls, and his hands deep in his
breeches pockets. I can even recall that he had a trick of keep-
ing a straw in the corner of his mouth, just where he used af-
terwards to hold his pipe. Jim was always the same for good
and for bad since first I knew him.
Heavens, how we all looked up to him! We were but young
savages, and had a savage's respect for power. There was Tom
Carndale of Appleby, who could write alcaics as well as mere
pentameters and hexameters, yet nobody would give a snap for
Tom and there was Willie Earnshaw, who had every date, from
the killing of Abel, on the tip of his tongue, so that the masters
themselves would turn to him if they were in doubt, yet he was
but a narrow-chested lad, over long for his breadth; and what
did his dates help him when Jack Simons of the lower third
chivied him down the passage with the buckle end of a strap?
But you didn't do things like that with Jim Horscroft. What

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tales we used to whisper about his strength! How he put his
fist through the oak-panel of the game-room door; how, when
Long Merridew was carrying the ball, he caught up Merridew,
ball and all, and ran swiftly past every opponent to the goal. It
did not seem fit to us that such a one as he should trouble his
head about spondees and dactyls, or care to know who signed
Magna Charta. When he said in open class that King Alfred
was the man, we little boys all felt that very likely it was so,
and that perhaps Jim knew more about it than the man who
wrote the book.
Well, it was this business of the burglar that drew his atten-
tion to me; for he patted me on my head, and said that I was a
spunky little devil, which blew me out with pride for a week on
end. For two years we were close friends, for all the gap that
the years had made between us, and though in passion or in
want of thought he did many a thing that galled me, yet I loved
him like a brother, and wept as much as would have filled an
ink bottle when at last he went off to Edinburgh to study his
father's profession. Five years after that did I bide at
Birtwhistle's, and when I left I had become cock myself, for I
was as wiry and as tough as whalebone, though I never ran to
weight and sinew like my great predecessor. It was in Jubilee
Year that I left Birtwhistle's, and then for three years I stayed
at home learning the ways of the cattle; but still the ships and
the armies were wrestling, and still the great shadow of Bona-
parte lay across the country. How could I guess that I too
should have a hand in lifting that shadow for ever from our
people?

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Chapter 2
Cousin Edie of Eyemouth
Some years before, when I was still but a lad, there had come
over to us upon a five weeks' visit the only daughter of my
father's brother. Willie Calder had settled at Eyemouth as a
maker of fishing nets, and he had made more out of twine than
ever we were like to do out of the whin-bushes and sand-links
of West Inch. So his daughter, Edie Calder, came over with a
braw red frock and a five-shilling bonnet, and a kist full of
things that brought my dear mother's eyes out like a parten's.
It was wonderful to see her so ftee with money, and she but a
slip of a girl, paying the carrier man all that he asked and a
whole twopence over, to which he had no claim. She made no
more of drinking ginger-beer than we did of water, and she
would have her sugar in her tea and butter with her bread just
as if she had been English.
I took no great stock of girls at that time, for it was hard for
me to see what they had been made for. There were none of us
at Birtwhistle's that thought very much of them but the smal-
lest laddies seemed to have the most sense, for after they
began to grow bigger they were not so sure about it. We little
ones were all of one mind: that a creature that couldn't fight
and was aye carrying tales, and couldn't so much as shy a
stone without flapping its arm like a rag in the wind, was no
use for anything. And then the airs that they would put on, as if
they were mother and father rolled into one; for ever breaking
into a game with "Jimmy, your toe's come through your boot,"
or " Go home, you dirty boy, and clean yourself," until the very
sight of them was weariness.
So when this one came to the steading at West Inch I was not
best pleased to see her. I was twelve at the time (it was in the
holidays) and she eleven, a thin, tallish girl with black eyes and

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the queerest ways. She was for ever staring out in front of her
with her lips parted, as if she saw something wonderful; but
when I came behind her and looked the same way, I could see
nothing but the sheeps' trough or the midden, or father's
breeches hanging on a clothes-line. And then if she saw a lump
of heather or bracken, or any common stuff of that sort, she
would mope over it, as if it had struck her sick, and cry, "How
sweet! how perfect!" just as though it had been a painted pic-
ture. She didn't like games, but I used to make her play "tig "
and such like; but it was no fun, for I could always catch her in
three jumps, and she could never catch me, though she would
come with as much rustle and flutter as ten boys would make.
When I used to tell her that she was good for nothing, and that
her father was a fool to bring her up like that, she would begin
to cry, and say that I was a rude boy, and that she would go
home that very night, and never forgive me as long as she
lived. But in five minutes she had forgot all about it. What was
strange was that she liked me a deal better than I did her, and
she would never leave me alone; but she was always watching
me and running after me, and then saying, "Oh, here you are!"
as if it were a surprise.
But soon I found that there was good in her too. She used
sometimes to give me pennies, so that once I had four in my
pocket all at the same time; but the best part of her was the
stories that she could tell. She was sore frightened of frogs, so
I would bring one to her, and tell her that I would put it down
her neck unless she told a story. That always helped her to be-
gin; but when once she was started it was wonderful how she
would carry on. And the things that had happened to her, they
were enough to take your breath away. There was a Barbary
rover that had been at Eyemouth, and he was coming back in
five years in a ship full of gold to make her his wife; and then
there was a wandering knight who had been there also, and he
had given her a ring which he said he would redeem when the
time came. She showed me the ring, which was very like the
ones upon my bed curtain; but she said that this one was virgin
gold. I asked her what the knight would do if he met the Bar-
bary rover, and she told me that he would sweep his head from
his shoulders. What they could all see in her was more than I
could think. And then she told me that she had been followed

13
on her way to West Inch by a disguised prince. I asked her how
she knew it was a prince, and she said by his disguise. Another
day she said that her father was preparing a riddle, and that
when it was ready it would be put in the papers, and anyone
who guessed it would have half his fortune and his daughter. I
said that I was good at riddles, and that she must send it to me
when it was ready. She said it would be in the Berwick Gaz-
ette, and wanted to know what I would do with her when I won
her. I said I would sell her by public roup for what she would
fetch; but she would tell no more stories that evening, for she
was very techy about some things.
Jim Horscroft was away when Cousin Edie was with us, but
he came back the very week she went; and I mind how sur-
prised I was that he should ask any questions or take any in-
terest in a mere lassie. He asked me if she were pretty; and
when I said I hadn't noticed, he laughed and called me a mole,
and said my eyes would be opened some day. But very soon he
came to be interested in something else, and I never gave Edie
another thought until one day she just took my life in her hands
and twisted it as I could twist this quill.
That was in 1813, after I had left school when I was already
eighteen years of age, with a good forty hairs on my upper lip
and every hope of more. I had changed since I left school, and
was not so keen on games as I had been, but found myself in-
stead lying about on the sunny side of the braes, with my own
lips parted and my eyes staring just the same as Cousin Edie's
used to do. It had satisfied me and filled my whole life that I
could run faster and jump higher than my neighbour; but now
all that seemed such a little thing, and I yearned, and yearned,
and looked up at the big arching sky, and down at the flat blue
sea, and felt that there was something wanting, but could nev-
er lay my tongue to what that something was. And I became
quick of temper too, for my nerves seemed all of a fret, and
when my mother would ask me what ailed me, or my father
would speak of my turning my hand to work, I would break into
such sharp bitter answers as I have often grieved over since.
Ah! a man may have more than one wife, and more than one
child, and more than one friend; but he can never have but the
one mother, so let him cherish her while he may.

14
 One day when I came in from the sheep, there was my father
sitting with a letter in his hands, which was a very rare thing
with us, except when the factor wrote for the rent. Then as I
came nearer to him I saw that he was crying, and I stood star-
ing, for I had always thought that it was not a thing that a man
could do. I can see him now, for he had so deep a crease across
his brown cheek that no tear could pass it, but must trickle
away sideways and so down to his ear, hopping off on to the
sheet of paper. My mother sat beside him and stroked his
hands like she did the cat's back when she would soothe it.
"Aye, Jeannie," said be, "poor Willie is gone. It's from the law-
yer, and it was sudden or they'd ha' sent word of it. Carbuncle,
he says, and a flush o' blood to the head."
"Ah! well, his trouble's over," said my mother.
My father rubbed his ears with the tablecloth.
"He's left a' his savings to his lassie," said he, "and by gom if
she's not changed from what she promised to be she'll soon gar
them flee. You mind what she said of weak tea under this very
roof, and it at seven shillings the pound!"
My mother shook her head, and looked up at the flitches of
bacon that hung from the ceiling.
"He doesn't say how much, but she 'll have enough and to
spare, he says. And she is to come and bide with us, for that
was his last wish."
"To pay for her keep!" cried my mother sharply. I was sorry
that she should have spoken of money at that moment, but
then if she had not been sharp we would all have been on the
roadside in a twelvemonth.
"Aye, she'll pay, and she's coming this very day. Jock lad, I 'll
want you to drive to Ayton and meet the evening coach. Your
cousin Edie will be in it, and you can fetch her over to West
Inch."
And so off I started at quarter past five with Souter Johnnie,
the long-haired fifteen-year-old, and our cart with the new-
painted tailboard that we only used on great days. The coach
was in just as I came, and I, like a foolish country lad, taking no
heed to the years that had passed, was looking about among
the folk at the Inn front for a slip of a girl with her petticoats
just under her knees. And as I slouched past and craned my
neck there came a touch to my elbow, and there was a lady

15
dressed all in black standing by the steps, and I knew that it
was my cousin Edie.
I knew it. I say, and yet had she not touched me I might have
passed her a score of times and never known it. My word, if
Jim Horscroft had asked me then if she were pretty or no, I
should have known how to answer him! She was dark, much
darker than is common among our border lassies, and yet with
such a faint blush of pink breaking through her dainty colour,
like the deeper flush at the heart of a sulphur rose. Her lips
were red, and kindly, and firm; and even then, at the first
glance, I saw that light of mischief and mockery that danced
away at the back of her great dark eyes. She took me then and
there as though I had been her heritage, put out her hand and
plucked me. She was, as I have said, in black, dressed in what
seemed to me to be a wondrous fashion, with a black veil
pushed up from her brow.
"Ah! Jack," said she, in a mincing English fashion, that she
had learned at the boarding school. "No, no, we are rather old
for that" — this because I in my awkward fashion was pushing
my foolish brown face forward to kiss her, as I had done when I
saw her last. "Just hurry up like a good fellow and give a shil-
ling to the conductor, who has been exceedingly civil to me
during the journey."
I flushed up red to the ears, for I had only a silver fourpenny
piece in my pocket. Never had my lack of pence weighed so
heavily upon me as just at that moment. But she read me at a
glance, and there in an instant was a little moleskin purse with
a silver clasp thrust into my hand. I paid the man, and would
have given it back, but she still would have me keep it.
"You shall be my factor, Jack," said she, laughing. "Is this our
carriage? How funny it looks! And where am I to sit?
"On the sacking," said I.
"And how am I to get there?"
"Put your foot on the hub," said I. "I'll help you."
I sprang up and took her two little gloved hands in my own.
As she came over the side her breath blew in my face, sweet
and warm, and all that vagueness and unrest seemed in a mo-
ment to have been shredded away from my soul. I felt as if that
instant had taken me out from myself, and made me one of the
race. It took but the time of the flicking of the horse's tail, and

16
yet something had happened, a barrier had gone down some-
where, and I was leading a wider and wiser life. I felt it all in a
gush, but shy and backward as I was, I could do nothing but
flatten out the sacking for her. Her eyes were after the coach
which was rattling away to Berwick, and suddenly she shook
her handkerchief in the air.
"He took off his hat," said she. "I think he must have been an
officer. He was very distinguished looking. Perhaps you noticed
him — a gentleman on the outside, very handsome, with a
brown overcoat."
I shook my head, with all my flush of joy changed to foolish
resentment.
"Ah! well, I shall never see him again. Here are all the green
braes and the brown winding road just the same as ever. And
you, Jack, I don't see any great change in you either. I hope
your manners are better than they used to be. You won't try to
put any frogs down my back, will you?"
I crept all over when I thought of such a thing.
"We'll do all we can to make you happy at West Inch," said I,
playing with the whip.
"I 'm sure it's very kind of you to take a poor lonely girl in,"
said she.
"It's very kind of you to come, Cousin Edie," I stammered.
"You'll find it very dull, I fear."
"I suppose it is a little quiet, Jack, eh? Not many men about,
as I remember it."
"There is Major Elliott, up at Corriemuir. He comes down of
an evening, a real brave old soldier who had a ball in his knee
under Wellington."
"Ah, when I speak of men, Jack, I don't mean old folk with
balls in their knees. I meant people of our own age that we
could make friends of. By the way, that crabbed old doctor had
a son, had he not?"
"Oh yes, that's Jim Horscroft, my best friend."
"Is he at home?"
"No. He'll be home soon. He's still at Edinburgh studying."
"Ah! then we'll keep each other company until he comes,
Jack. And I 'm very tired and I wish I was at West Inch."
I made old Souter Johnnie cover the ground as he has never
done before or since, and in an hour she was seated at the

17
supper table, where my mother had laid out not only butter,
but a glass dish of gooseberry jam, which sparkled and looked
fine in the candle-light. I could see that my parents were as
overcome as I was at the difference in her, though not in the
same way. My mother was so set back by the feather thing that
she had round her neck that she called her Miss Calder instead
of Edie, until my cousin in her pretty flighty way would lift her
forefinger to her whenever she did it. After supper, when she
had gone to bed, they could talk of nothing but her looks and
her breeding.
"By the way, though," says my father, "it does not look as if
she were heart-broke about my brother's death."
And then for the first time I remembered that she had never
said a word about the matter since I had met her.

18
Chapter 3
The Shadow on the Waters
It was not very long before Cousin Edie was queen of West
Inch, and we all her devoted subjects from my father down.
She had money and to spare, though none of us knew how
much. When my mother said that four shillings the week would
cover all that she would cost, she fixed on seven shillings and
sixpence of her own free will. The south room, which was the
sunniest and had the honeysuckle round the window, was for
her; and it was a marvel to see the things that she brought
from Berwick to put into it. Twice a week she would drive over,
and the cart would not do for her, for she hired a gig from An-
gus Whitehead, whose farm lay over the hill. And it was seldom
that she went without bringing something back for one or oth-
er of us. It was a wooden pipe for my father, or a Shetland
plaid for my mother, or a book for me, or a brass collar for Rob
the collie. There was never a woman more free-handed.
But the best thing that she gave us was just her own pres-
ence. To me it changed the whole country-side, and the sun
was brighter and the braes greener and the air sweeter from
the day she came. Our lives were common no longer now that
we spent them with such a one as she, and the old dull grey
house was another place in my eyes since she had set her foot
— across the door-mat. It was not her face, though that was
winsome enough, nor her form, though I never saw the lass
that could match her; but it was her spirit, her queer mocking
ways, her fresh new fashion of talk, her proud whisk of the
dress and toss of the head, which made one feel like the
ground beneath her feet, and then the quick challenge in her
eye, and the kindly word that brought one up to her level
again.

19
 But never quite to her level either. To me she was always
something above and beyond. I might brace myself and blame
myself, and do what I would, but still I could not feel that the
same blood ran in our veins, and that she was but a country
lassie, as I was a country lad. The more I loved her the more
frighted I was at her, and she could see the fright long before
she knew the love. I was uneasy to be away from her, and yet
when I was with her I was in a shiver all the time for fear my
stumbling talk might weary her or give her offence. Had I
known more of the ways of women I might have taken less
pains.
"You're a deal changed from what you used to be, Jack," said
she, looking at me sideways from under her dark lashes.
"You said not when first we met," says I.
"Ah! I was speaking of your looks then, and of your ways
now. You used to be so rough to me, and so masterful, and
would have your own way, like the little man that you were. I
can see you now with your touzled brown hair and your mis-
chievous eyes. And now you are so gentle and quiet and soft-
spoken."
"One learns to behave," says I.
"Ah, but, Jack, I liked you so much better as you were!"
Well, when she said that I fairly stared at her, for I had
thought that she could never have quite forgiven me for the
way I used to carry on. That anyone out of a daft house could
have liked it was clean beyond my understanding. I thought of
how when she was reading by the door I would go up on the
moor with a hazel switch and fix little clay balls at the end of it,
and sling them at her until I made her cry. And then I thought
of how I caught an eel in the Corriemuir burn and chivied her
about with it, until she ran screaming under my mother's apron
half mad with fright, and my father gave me one on the ear-
hole with the porridge stick which knocked me and my eel un-
der the kitchen dresser. And these were the things that she
missed! Well, she must miss them, for my hand would wither
before I could do them now. But for the first time I began to
understand the queerness that lies in a woman, and that a man
must not reason about one, but just watch and try to learn.
We found our level after a time, when she saw that she had
just to do what she liked and how she liked, and that I was as

20
much at her beck and call as old Rob was at mine. You 'll think
I was a fool to have had my head so turned, and maybe I was;
but then you must think how little I was used to women, and
how much we were thrown together. Besides, she was a wo-
man in a million, and I can tell you that it was a strong head
that would not be turned by her.
Why, there was Major Elliott, a man that had buried three
wives, and had twelve pitched battles to his name, Edie could
have turned him round her finger like a damp rag — she, only
new from the boarding school. I met him hobbling from West
Inch the first time after she came, with pink in his cheeks and
a shine in his eye that took ten years from him. He was cocking
up his grey moustaches at either end and curling them into his
eyes, and strutting out with his sound leg as proud as a piper.
What she had said to him the Lord knows, but it was like old
wine in his veins.
"I've been up to see you, laddie," said he, "but I must home
again now. My visit has not been wasted, however, as I had an
opportunity of seeing la belle cousine. A most charming and
engaging young lady, laddie."
He had a formal stiff way of talking, and was fond of jerking
in a bit of the French, for he had picked some up in the Penin-
sula. He would have gone on talking of Cousin Edie, but I saw
the corner of a newspaper thrusting out of his pocket, and I
knew that he had come over, as was his way, to give me some
news, for we heard little enough at West Inch.
"What is fresh, major?" I asked.
He pulled the paper out with a flourish.
"The allies have won a great battle, my lad," says he. "I don't
think Nap can stand up long against this. The Saxons have
thrown him over, and he's been badly beat at Leipzig. Welling-
ton is past the Pyrenees, and Graham's folk will be at Bayonne
before long."
I chucked up my hat.
"Then the war will come to an end at last," I cried.
"Aye, and time too," said he, shaking his head gravely. "It's
been a bloody business. But it is hardly worth while for me to
say now what was in my mind about you."
"What was that?"

21
 "Well, laddie, you are doing no good here, and now that my
knee is getting more limber I was hoping that I might get on
active service again. I wondered whether maybe you might like
to do a little soldiering under me."
My heart jumped at the thought.
"Aye, would I!" I cried.
"But it'll be clear six months before I 'll be fit to pass a board,
and it's long odds that Boney will be under lock and key before
that."
"And there's my mother," said I, "I doubt she'd never let me
go."
"Ah! well, she'll never be asked to now," he answered, and
hobbled on upon his way.
I sat down among the heather with my chin on my hand,
turning the thing over in my mind, and watching him in his old
brown clothes, with the end of a grey plaid flapping over his
shoulder, as he picked his way up the swell of the hill. It was a
poor life this, at West Inch, waiting to fill my father's shoes,
with the same heath, and the same burn, and the same sheep,
and the same grey house for ever before me. But over there,
over the blue sea, ah! there was a life fit for a man. There was
the Major, a man past his prime, wounded and spent, and yet
planning to get to work again, whilst I, with all the strength of
my youth, was wasting it upon these hillsides. A hot wave of
shame flushed over me, and I sprang up all in a tingle to be off
and playing a man's part in the world.
For two days I turned it over in my mind, and on the third
there came something which first brought all my resolutions to
a head, and then blew them all to nothing like a puff of smoke
in the wind.
I had strolled out in the afternoon with Cousin Edie and Rob,
until we found ourselves upon the brow of the slope which dips
away down to the beach. It was late in the fall, and the links
were all bronzed and faded; but the sun still shone warmly, and
a south breeze came in little hot pants, rippling the broad blue
sea with white curling lines. I pulled an armful of bracken to
make a couch for Edie, and there she lay in her listless fashion,
happy and contented; for of all folk that I have ever met, she
had the most joy from warmth and light. I leaned on a tussock
of grass, with Rob's head upon my knee, and there as we sat

22
alone in peace in the wilderness, even there we saw suddenly
thrown upon the waters in front of us the shadow of that great
man over yonder, who had scrawled his name in red letters
across the map of Europe.
There was a ship coming up with the wind, a black sedate old
merchantman, bound for Leith as likely as not. Her yards were
square and she was running with all sail set. On the other tack,
coming from the north-east, were two great ugly lugger-like
craft, with one high mast each, and a big square brown sail. A
prettier sight one would not wish than to see the three craft
dipping along upon so fair a day. But of a sudden there came a
spurt of flame and a whirl of blue smoke from one lugger, then
the same from the second, and a rap, rap, rap, from the ship.
In a twinkling hell had elbowed out heaven, and there on the
waters was hatred and savagery and the lust for blood.
We had sprung to our feet at the outburst, and Edie put her
hand all in a tremble upon my arm.
"They are fighting, jack!" she cried. "What are they? Who are
they?"
My heart was thudding with the guns, and it was all that I
could do to answer her for the catch of my breath.
"It's two French privateers, Edie," said I, "Chasse-marries,
they call them, and yon's one of our merchant ships, and they'll
take her as sure as death; for the major says they 've always
got heavy guns, and are as full of men as an egg is full of meat.
Why doesn't the fool make back for Tweedmouth bar?"
But not an inch of canvas did she lower, but floundered on in
her stolid fashion, while a little black ball ran up to her peak,
and the rare old flag streamed suddenly out from the halliard.
Then again came the rap, rap, rap, of her little guns, and the
boom, boom of the big carronades in the bows of the lugger.
An instant later the three ships met, and the merchantman
staggered on like a stag with two wolves hanging to its
haunches. The three became but a dark blurr amid the smoke,
with the top spars thrusting out in a bristle, and from the heart
of that cloud came the quick red flashes of flame, and such a
devil's racket of big guns and small, cheering and screaming,
as was to din in my head for many a week. For a stricken hour
the hell-cloud moved slowly across the face of the water, and
still with our hearts in our mouths we watched the flap of the

23
flag, straining to see if it were yet there. And then suddenly the
ship, as proud and black and high as ever, shot on upon her
way; and as the smoke cleared we saw one of the luggers
squattering like a broken-winged duck upon the water, and the
other working hard to get the crew from her before she sank.
For all that hour I had lived for nothing but the fight. My cap
had been whisked away by the wind, but I had never given it a
thought. Now with my heart full I turned upon my Cousin Edie,
and the sight of her took me back six years. There was the va-
cant staring eye and the parted lips, just as I had seen them in
her girlhood, and her little hands were clenched until the
knuckles gleamed like ivory.
"Ah, that captain!" said she, talking to the heath and the
whin-bushes. "There is a man so strong, so resolute! What wo-
man would not be proud of a man like that?"
"Aye, he did well!" I cried with enthusiasm.
She looked at me as if she had forgotten my existence.
"I would give a year of my life to meet such a man," said she;
"But that is what living in the country means. One never sees
anybody but just those who are fit for nothing better."
I do not know that she meant to hurt me, though she was
never very backward at that; but whatever her intention, her
words seemed to strike straight upon a naked nerve.
"Very well, Cousin Edie," I said, trying to speak calmly, "that
puts the cap on it. I 'll take the bounty in Berwick to- night."
"What, Jack! you be a soldier!"
"Yes, if you think that every man that bides in the country
must be a coward."
"Oh, you'd look so handsome in a red coat, Jack, and it im-
proves you vastly when you are in a temper. I wish your eyes
would always flash like that, for it looks so nice and manly. But
I am sure that you are joking about the soldiering."
"I 'll let you see if I am joking."
Then and there I set off running over the moor, until I burst
into the kitchen where my mother and father were sitting on
either side of the ingle.
"Mother," I cried, "I'm off for a soldier!"
Had I said I was off for a burglar they could not have looked
worse over it, for in those days among the decent canny coun-
try folks it was mostly the black sheep that were herded by the

24
sergeant. But, my word, those same black sheep did their coun-
try some rare service too. My mother put up her mittens to her
eyes, and my father looked as black as a peat hole.
"Hoots, Jock, you're daft," says he.
"Daft or no, I 'm going."
"Then you'll have no blessing from me?"
"Then I'll go without."
At this my mother gives a screech and throws her arms about
my neck. I saw her hand, all hard and worn and knuckly with
the work she had done for my upbringing, and it pleaded with
me as words could not have done. My heart was soft for her,
but my will was as hard as a flint-edge. I put her back in her
chair with a kiss, and then ran to my room to pack my bundle.
It was already growing dark, and I had a long walk before me,
so I thrust a few things together and hastened out. As I came
through the side door someone touched my shoulder, and there
was Edie in the gloaming.
"Silly boy," said she, "you are not really going."
"Am I not? You'll see."
"But your father does not wish it, nor your mother."
"I know that."
"Then why go?"
"You ought to know."
"Why, then?"
"Because you make me!"
"I don't want you to go, Jack."
"You said it. You said that the folk in the country were fit for
nothing better. You always speak like that. You think no more
of me than of those doos in the cot. You think I am nobody at
all. I'll show you different."
All my troubles came out in hot little spurts of speech. She
coloured up as I spoke, and looked at me in her queer half-
mocking, half-petting fashion.
"Oh, I think so little of you as that?" said she. "And that is the
reason why you are going away? Well then, Jack, will you stay
if I am — if I am kind to you?"
We were face to face and close together, and in an instant
the thing was done. My arms were round her, and I was kissing
her, and kissing her, and kissing her, on her mouth, her
cheeks, her eyes, and pressing her to my heart, and whispering

25
to her that she was all, all, to me, and that I could not be
without her. She said nothing, but it was long before she
turned her face aside, and when she pushed me back it was not
very hard.
"Why, you are quite your rude, old, impudent self!" said she,
patting her hair with her two hands. "You have tossed me,
Jack; I had no idea that you would be so forward!"
But all my fear of her was gone, and a love tenfold hotter
than ever was boiling in my veins. I took her up again, and
kissed her as if it were my right.
"You are my very own now!" I cried. "I shall not go to Ber-
wick, but I 'll stay and marry you."
But she laughed when I spoke of marriage.
"Silly boy! Silly. boy!" said she, with her forefinger up; and
then when I tried to lay hands on her again, she gave a little
dainty curtsy, and was off into the house.

26
Chapter 4
The Choosing of Jim
And then there came those ten weeks which were like a dream,
and are so now to look back upon. I would weary you were I to
tell you what passed between us but oh, how earnest and fate-
ful and all-important it was at the time! Her waywardness; her
ever-varying moods, now bright, now dark, like a meadow un-
der drifting clouds; her causeless angers; her sudden repent-
ances, each in turn filling me with joy or sorrow: these were
my life, and all the rest was but emptiness. But ever deep down
behind all my other feelings was a vague disquiet, a fear that I
was like the man who set forth to lay hands upon the rainbow,
and that the real Edie Calder, however near she might seem,
was in truth for ever beyond my reach.
For she was so hard to understand, or, at least, she was so
for a dull-witted country lad like me. For if I would talk to her
of my real prospects, and how by taking in the whole of Cor-
riemuir we might earn a hundred good pounds over the extra
rent, and maybe be able to build out the parlour at West Inch,
so as to make it fine for her when we married, she would pout
her lips and droop her eyes, as though she scarce had patience
to listen to me. But if I would let her build up dreams about
what I might become, how I might find a paper which proved
me to be the true heir of the laird, or how, without joining the
army, which she would by no means hear of, I showed myself
to be a great warrior until my name was in all folks' mouths,
then she would be as blithe as the May. I would keep up the
play as well as I could, but soon some luckless word would
show that I was only plain Jock Calder of West Inch, and out
would come her lip again in scorn of me. So we moved on, she
in the air and I on the ground; and if the rift had not come in
one way, it must in another.

27
 It was after Christmas, but the winter had been mild, with
just frost enough to make it safe walking over the peat bogs.
One fresh morning Edie had been out early, and she came back
to breakfast with a fleck of colour on her cheeks.
"Has your friend the doctor's son come home, Jack?" says
she.
"I heard that he was expected."
"Ah! then it must have been him that I met on the muir."
"What! you met Jim Horscroft?"
"I am sure it must be he. A splendid-looking man — a hero,
with curly black hair, a short, straight nose, and grey eyes. He
had shoulders like a statue, and as to height, why I suppose
that your head, Jack, would come up to his scarf-pin."
"Up to his ear, Edie!" said I, indignantly. "That is, if it was
Jim. But tell me. Had he a brown wooden pipe stuck in the
corner of his mouth?"
"Yes, he was smoking. He was dressed in grey, and he has a
grand deep strong voice."
"Ho, ho! you spoke to him!" said I.
She coloured a little, as if she had said more than she meant.
"I was going where the ground was a little soft, and he
warned me of it," she said.
"Ah it must have been dear old Jim," said I. "He should have
been a doctor years back, if his brains had been as strong as
his arm. Why, heart alive, here is the very man himself!"
I had seen him through the kitchen window, and now I
rushed out with my half-eaten bannock in my hand to greet
him. He ran forward too, with his great hand out and his eyes
shining.
"Ah! Jock," he cried, "it's good to see you again. There are no
friends like the old ones."
Then suddenly he stuck in his speech, and stared with his
mouth open over my shoulder. I turned, and there was; Edie,
with such a merry, roguish smile, standing in the door. How
proud I felt of her, and of myself too, as I looked at her!
"This is my cousin, Miss Edie Calder, Jim," said I.
"Do you often take walks before breakfast, Mr. Horscroft?"
she asked, still with that roguish smile.
"Yes," said he, staring at her with all his eyes.

28
 "So do I, and generally over yonder," said she. "But you are
not very hospitable to your friend, Jack. If you do not do the
honours, I shall have to take your place for the credit of West
Inch."
Well, in another minute we were in with the old folk, and Jim
had his plate of porridge ladled out for him; but hardly a word
would he speak, but sat with his spoon in his hand staring at
Cousin Edie. She shot little twinkling glances across at him all
the time, and it seemed to me that she was amused at his back-
wardness, and that she tried by what she said to give him
heart.
"Jack was telling me that you were studying to be a doctor,"
said she. "But, oh, how hard it must be, and how long it must
take before one can gather so much learning as that!"
"It takes me long enough," Jim answered ruefully; "but I 'll
beat it yet."
"Ah! but you are brave. You are resolute. You fix your eyes on
a point and you move on towards it, and nothing can stop you."
"Indeed, I 've little to boast of," said he.
Many a one who began with me has put up his plate years
ago, and here am I but a student still."
"That is your modesty, Mr. Horscroft. They say that the
bravest are always humble. But then, when you have gained
your end, what a glorious career — to carry healing in your
hands, to raise up the suffering, to have for one's sole end the
good of humanity!"
Honest Jim wriggled in his chair at this.
"I'm afraid I have no such very high motives, Miss Calder,"
said he. "It is to earn a living, and to take over my father's busi-
ness, that I do it. If I carry healing in one hand, I have the oth-
er out for a crown-piece."
"How candid and truthful you are!" she cried; and so they
went on, she decking him with every virtue, and twisting his
words to make him play the part, in the way that I knew so
well. Before he was done I could see that his head was buzzing
with her beauty and her kindly words. I thrilled with pride to
think that he should think so well of my kin.
"Isn't she fine, Jim?" I could not help saying when we stood
outside the door, he lighting his pipe before he set off home.
"Fine!" he cried; "I never saw her match!"

29
 "We're going to be married," said I.
The pipe fell out of his mouth, and he stood staring at me.
Then he picked it up and walked off without a word. I thought
that he would likely come back, but he never did; and I saw
him far off up the brae, with his chin on his chest.
But I was not to forget him, for Cousin Edie had a hundred
questions to ask me about his boyhood, about his strength,
about the women that he was likely to know; there was no sat-
isfying her. And then again, later in the day, I heard of him, but
in a less pleasant fashion.
It was my father who came home in the evening with his
mouth full of poor Jim. He had been deadly drunk since mid-
day, had been down to Westhouse Links to fight the gipsy
champion, and it was not certain that the man would live
through the night. My father had met Jim on the high road,
dour as a thunder-cloud, and with an insult in his eye for every
man that passed him. "Guid sakes!" said the old man. "He'll
make a fine practice for himsel', if breaking banes will do it."
Cousin Edie laughed at all this, and I laughed because she
did; but I was not so sure that it was funny.
On the third day afterwards, I was going up Corriemuir by
the sheep-track, when who should I see striding down but Jim
himself. But he was a different man from the big, kindly fellow
who had supped his porridge with us the other-morning. He
had no collar nor tie, his vest was open, his hair matted, and
his face mottled, like a man who has drunk heavily overnight.
He carried an ash stick, and he slashed at the whin-bushes on
either side of the path.
"Why, Jim!" said I.
But he looked at me in the way that I had often seen at
school when the devil was strong in him, and when he knew
that he was in the wrong, and yet set his will to brazen it out.
Not a word did he say, but he brushed past me on the narrow
path and swaggered on, still brandishing his ashplant and cut-
ting at the bushes.
Ah well, I was not angry with him. I was sorry, very sorry,
and that was all. Of course, I was not so blind but that I could
see how the matter stood. He was in love with Edie, and he
could not bear to think that I should have her. Poor devil, how
could he help it? Maybe I should have been the same. There

30
was a time when I should have wondered that a girl could have
turned a strong man's head like that, but I knew more about it
now.
For a fortnight I saw nothing of Jim Horscroft, and then came
the Thursday which was to change the whole current of my
life.
I had woke early that day, and with a little thrill of joy which
is a rare thing to feel when a man first opens his eyes. Edie had
been kinder than usual the night before, and I had fallen asleep
with the thought that maybe at last I had caught the rainbow,
and that without any imaginings or make-believes she was
learning to love plain, rough Jock Calder of West Inch. It was
this thought, stiff at my heart, which had given me that little
morning chirrup of joy. And then I remembered that if I
hastened I might be in time for her, for it was her custom to go
out with the sunrise.
But I was too late. When I came to her door it was half-open
and the room empty. Well, thought I, at least I may meet her
and have the homeward walk with her. From the top of Cor-
riemuir hill you may see all the country round; so, catching up
my stick, I swung off in that direction. It was bright, but cold,
and the surf, I remember, was booming loudly, though there
had been no wind in our parts for days. I zigzagged up the
steep pathway, breathing in the thin, keen morning air, and
humming a lilt as I went, until I came out, a little short of
breath, among the whins upon the top. Looking down the long
slope of the further side, I saw Cousin Edie, as I had expected;
and I saw Jim Horscroft walking by her side.
They were not far away, but too taken up with each other to
see me. She was walking slowly, with the little petulant cock of
her dainty head which I knew so well, casting her eyes away
from him, and shooting out a word from time to time. He paced
along beside her, looking down at her and bending his head in
the eagerness of his talk. Then as he said something, she
placed her hand with a caress upon his arm, and he, carried off
his feet, plucked her up and kissed her again and again. At the
sight I could neither cry out nor move, but stood, with a heart
of lead and the face of a dead man, staring down at them. I saw
her hand passed over his shoulder, and that his kisses were as
welcome to her as ever mine had been.

31
 Then he set her down again, and I found that this had been
their parting; for, indeed, in another hundred paces they would
have come in view of the upper windows of the house. She
walked slowly away, with a wave back once or twice, and he
stood looking after her. I waited until she was some way off,
and then down I came, but so taken up was he, that I was with-
in a hand's-touch of him before he whisked round upon me. He
tried to smile as his eye met mine.
"Ah, Jock," says he, "early afoot!"
"I saw you!" I gasped; and my throat had turned so dry that I
spoke like a man with a quinsy.
"Did you so?" said he, and gave a little whistle. "Well, on my
life, Jock, I'm not sorry. I was thinking of coming up to West
Inch this very day, and having it out with you. Maybe it 's bet-
ter as it is."
"You've been a fine friend!" said I.
"Well now, be reasonable, Jock," said he, sticking his hands
in to his pockets and rocking to and fro as he stood. "Let me
show you how it stands. Look me in the eye, and you'll see that
I don't lie. It's this way. I had met Edi — Miss Calder that is —
before I came that morning, and there were things which made
me look upon her as free; and, thinking that, I let my mind
dwell on her. Then you said she wasn't free, but was promised
to you, and that was the worst knock I've had for a time. It
clean put me off, and I made a fool of myself for some days,
and it's a mercy I 'm not in Berwick gaol. Then by chance I met
her again — on my soul, Jock, it was chance for me, — and
when I spoke of you she laughed at the thought. It was cousin
and cousin, she said; but as for her not being free, or you being
more to her than a friend, it was fool's talk. So you see, Jock, I
was not so much to blame, after all: the more so as she prom-
ised that she would let you see by her conduct that you were
mistaken in thinking that you had any claim upon her. You
must have noticed that she has hardly had a word for you for
these last two weeks."
I laughed bitterly.
"It was only last night," said I, "that she told me that I was
the only man in all this earth that she could ever bring herself
to love."

32
 Jim Horscroft put out a shaking hand and laid it on my
shoulder, while he pushed his face forward to look into my
eyes.
"Jock Calder," said he, "I never knew you tell a lie. You are
not trying to score trick against trick, are you? Honest now,
between man and man."
"It's God's truth," said I.
He stood looking at me, and his face had set like that of a
man who is having a hard fight with himself. It was a long two
minutes before he spoke.
"See here, Jock!" said he. "This woman is fooling us both.
D'you hear, man? she's fooling us both! She loves you at West
Inch, and she loves me on the braeside; and in her devil's heart
she cares a whin-blossom for neither of us. Let 's join hands,
man, and send the hellfire hussy, to the right-about!"
But this was too much. I could not curse her in my own heart,
and still less could I stand by and hear another man do it; not
though it was my oldest friend.
"Don't you call names!" I cried.
"Ach! you sicken me with your soft talk! I 'll call her what she
should be called!"
"Will you, though?" said I, lugging off my coat. "Look you
here, Jim Horscroft, if you say another word against her, I 'll
lick it down your throat, if you were as big as Berwick Castle!
Try me and see!"
He peeled off his coat down to the elbows, and then he
slowly pulled it on again.
"Don't be such a fool, Jock!" said he. "Four stone and five
inches is more than mortal man can give. Two old friends
mustn't fall out over such a — well, there, I won't say it. Well,
by the Lord, if she hasn't nerve for ten!"
I looked round, and there she was, not twenty yards from us,
looking as cool and easy and placid as we were hot and
fevered.
"I was nearly home," said she, "when I saw you two boys very
busy talking, so I came all the way back to know what it was
about."
Horscroft took a run forward and caught her by the wrist.
She gave a little squeal at the sight of his face, but he pulled
her towards where I was standing.

33
 "Now, Jock, we 've had tomfoolery enough," said he. "Here
she is. Shall we take her word as to which she likes? She can't
trick us now that we're both together."
"I am willing," said I.
"And so am I. If she goes for you, I swear I 'll never so much
as turn an eye on her again. Will you do as much for me?"
"Yes, I will."
"Well then, look here, you! We're both honest men, and
friends, and we tell each other no lies; and so we know your
double ways. I know what you said last night. Jock knows what
you said to-day. D'you see? Now then, fair and square! Here we
are before you; once and have done. Which is it to be, Jock or
me?"
You would have thought that the woman would have been
overwhelmed with shame, but instead of that her eyes were
shining with delight; and I dare wager that it was the proudest
moment of her life. As she looked from one to the other of us,
with the cold morning sun glittering on her face, I had never
seen her look so lovely. Jim felt it also, I am sure; for he
dropped her wrist, and the harsh lines were softened upon his
face.
"Come, Edie! which is it to be?" he asked.
"Naughty boys, to fall out like this!" she cried. "Cousin Jack,
you know how fond I am of you."
"Oh, then go to him," said Horscroft.
"But I love nobody but Jim. There is nobody that I love like
Jim."
She snuggled up to him, and laid her cheek against his
breast.
"You see, Jock!" said he, looking over her shoulder.
I did see; and away I went for West Inch, another man from
the time that I left it.

34
Chapter 5
The Man from the Sea
Well, I was never one to sit groaning over a cracked pot. If it
could not be mended, then it is the part of a man to say no
more of it. For weeks I had an aching heart; indeed, it is a little
sore now, after all these years and a happy marriage, when I
think of it. But I kept a brave face on me; and, above all, I did
as I had promised that day on the hillside. I was as a brother to
her, and no more: though there were times when I had to put a
hard curb upon myself; for even now she would come to me
with her coaxing ways, and with tales about how rough Jim
was, and how happy she had been when I was kind to her; for
it was in her blood to speak like that, and she could not help it.
But for the most part Jim and she were happy enough. It was
all over the countryside that they were to be married when he
had passed his degree, and he would come up to West Inch
four nights a week to sit with us. My folk were pleased about it,
and I tried to be pleased too.
Maybe at first there was a little coolness between him and
me: there was not quite the old schoolboy trust between us.
But then, when the first smart was passed, it seemed to me
that he had acted openly, and that I had no just cause for com-
plaint against him. So we were friendly in a way; and as for
her, he had forgotten all his anger, and would have kissed the
print of her shoe in the mud. We used to take long rambles to-
gether, he and I; and it is about one of these that I now want to
tell you.
We had passed over Bramston Heath and round the clump of
firs which screens the house of Major Elliott from the sea wind.
It was spring now, and the year was a forward one, so that the
trees were well leaved by the end of April. It was as warm as a
summer day, and we were the more surprised when we saw a

35
huge fire roaring upon the grassplot before the major's door.
There was half a fir-tree in it, and the flames were spouting up
as high as the bedroom windows. Jim and I stood staring, but
we stared the more when out came the major, with a great
quart pot in his hand, and at his heels his old sister who kept
house for him, and two of the maids, and all four began caper-
ing about round the fire. He was a douce, quiet man, as all the
country knew, and here he was like old Nick at the carlin's
dance, hobbling around and waving his drink above his head.
We both set off running, and he waved the more when he saw
us coming.
"Peace!" he roared. "Huzza, boys! Peace!"
And at that we both fell to dancing and shouting too; for it
had been such a weary war as far back as we' could remember,
and the shadow had lain so long over us, that it was wondrous
to feel that it was lifted. Indeed it was too much to believe, but
the major laughed our doubts to scorn.
"Aye, aye, it is true," he cried, stopping with his hand to his
side. "The Allies have got Paris, Boney has thrown up the
sponge, and his people are all swearing allegiance to Louis
XVIII."
"And the Emperor?" I asked. "Will they spare him?"
"There's talk of sending him to Elba, where he 'll be out of
mischief's way. But his officers, there are some of them who
will not get off so lightly. Deeds have been done during these
last twenty years that have not been forgotten. There are a few
old scores to be settled. But it 's Peace! Peace!"
And away he went once more with his great tankard hopping
round his bonfire.
Well, we stayed some time with the major, and then away we
went down to the beach, Jim and I, talking about this great
news, and all that would come of it. He knew a little, and I
knew less, but we pieced it all together and talked about how
the prices would come down, how our brave fellows would re-
turn home, how the ships could go where they would in peace,
and how we could pull all the coast beacons down, for there
was no enemy now to fear. So we chatted as we walked along
the clean, hard sand, and looked out at the old North Sea. How
little did Jim know at that moment, as he strode along by my
side so full of health and of spirits, that he had reached the

36
extreme summit of his life, and that from that hour all would,
in truth, be upon the downward slope!
There was a little haze out to sea; for it had been very misty
in the early morning, though the sun had thinned it. As we
looked seawards we suddenly saw the sail of a small boat
break out through the fog, and come bobbing along towards
the land. A single man was seated in the sheets, and she yawed
about as she ran, as though he were of two minds whether to
beach her or no. At last, determined it may be by our presence,
he made straight for us, and her keel grated upon the shingle
at our very feet. He dropped his sail, sprang out, and pulled
her bows up on the beach.
"Great Britain, I believe?" said he, turning briskly round and
facing us.
He was a man somewhat above middle height, but exceed-
ingly thin. His eyes were piercing and set close together, a
long sharp nose jutted out from between them, and beneath
was a bristle of brown moustache as wiry and stiff as a cat's
whiskers. He was well dressed in a suit of brown with brass
buttons, and he wore high boots which were all roughened and
dulled by the sea water. His face and hands were so dark that
he might have been a Spaniard, but as he raised his hat to us
we saw that the upper part of his brow was quite white and
that it was from without that he had his swarthiness. He looked
from one to the other of us, and his grey eyes had something in
them which I had never seen before. You could read the ques-
tion; but there seemed to be a menace at the back of it, as if
the answer were a right and not a favour.
"Great Britain?" he asked again, with a quick tap of his foot
on the shingle.
"Yes," said I, while Jim burst out laughing.
"England? Scotland?"
"Scotland. But it's England past yonder trees."
"Bon! I know where I am now. I 've been in a fog without a
compass for nearly three days, and I didn't thought I was ever
to see land again."
He spoke English glibly enough, but with some strange turn
of speech from time to time.
"Where did you come from then?" asked Jim.

37
 "I was in a ship that was wrecked," said he shortly. "What is
the town down yonder?"
"It is Berwick."
"Ah! well, I must get stronger before I can go further."
He turned towards the boat, and as he did so he gave a
lurch, and would have fallen had he not caught the prow. On
this he seated himself and looked round with a face that was
flushed, and two eyes that blazed like a wild beast's.
"Voltigeurs de la Garde!" he roared in a voice like a trumpet
call, and then again "Voltigeurs de la Garde!"
He waved his hat above his head, and suddenly pitching for-
wards upon his face on the sand, he lay all huddled into a little
brown heap.
Jim Horscroft and I stood and stared at each other. The com-
ing of the man had been so strange, and his questions, and now
this sudden turn. We took him by a shoulder each and turned
him upon his back. There he lay with his jutting nose and his
cat's whiskers, but his lips were bloodless, and his breath
would scarce shake a feather.
"He's dying, Jim!" I cried.
"Aye, for want of food and water. There's not a drop or
crumb in the boat. Maybe there's something in the bag."
He sprang and brought out a black leather bag, which with a
large blue coat was the only thing in the boat. It was locked,
but Jim had it open in an instant. It was half full of gold pieces.
Neither of us had ever seen so much before — no, nor a tenth
part of it. There must have been hundreds of them, all bright
new British sovereigns. Indeed, so taken up were we that we
had forgotten all about their owner until a groan took our
thoughts back to him. His lips were bluer than ever, and his
jaw had dropped. I can see his open mouth now, with its row of
white wolfish teeth.
"My God, he's off!" cried Jim. "Here, run to the burn, Jock,
for a hatful of water. Quick, man, or he's gone! I 'll loosen his
things the while."
Away I tore, and was back in a minute with as much water as
would stay in my Glengarry. Jim had pulled open the man's
coat and shirt, and we doused the water over him, and forced
some between his lips. It had a good effect; for after a gasp or
two he sat up and rubbed his eyes slowly, like a man who is

38
waking from a deep sleep. But neither Jim nor I were looking
at his face now, for our eyes were fixed upon his uncovered
chest.
There were two deep red puckers in it, one just below the
collar bone, and the other about half-way down on the right
side. The skin of his body was extremely white up to the brown
line of his neck, and the angry crinkled spots looked the more
vivid against it. From above I could see that there was a cor-
responding pucker in the back at one place, but not at the oth-
er. Inexperienced as I was, I could tell what that meant. Two
bullets had pierced his chest: one had passed through it, and
the other had remained inside.
But suddenly he staggered up to his feet, and pulled his shirt
to, with a quick suspicious glance at us.
"What have I been doing?" he asked. "I've been off my head.
Take no notice of anything I may have said. Have I been
shouting?"
"You shouted just before you fell."
"What did I shout?"
I told him, though it bore little meaning to my mind. He
looked sharply at us, and then he shrugged his shoulders.
"It's the words of a song," said he. "Well, the question is,
What am I to do now? I didn't thought I was so weak. Where
did you get the water?"
I pointed towards the burn, and he staggered off to the bank.
There he lay down upon his face, and he drank until I thought
he would never have done. His long, skinny neck was out-
stretched like a horse's, and he made a loud supping noise with
his lips. At last he got up with a long sigh, and wiped his mous-
tache with his sleeve.
"That's better," said he. "Have you any food?"
I had crammed two bits of oat-cake into my pocket when I
left home, and these he crushed into his mouth and swallowed.
Then he squared his shoulders, puffed out his chest, and patted
his ribs with the flat of his hands.
"I am sure that I owe you exceedingly well," said he. "You
have been very kind to a stranger. But I see that you have had
occasion to open my bag."
"We hoped that we might find wine or brandy there when
you fainted."

39
 "Ah! I have nothing there but just a little — how do you say
it? — my savings. They are not much, but I must live quietly
upon them until I find something to do. Now one could live
quietly here, I should say. I could not have come upon a more
peaceful place, without perhaps so much as a gend'arme near-
er than that town."
"You haven't told us yet who you are, where you come from,
nor what you have been," said Jim bluntly.
The stranger looked him up and down with a critical eye:
"My word, but you would make a grenadier for a flank com-
pany," said he. "As to what you ask, I might take offence at it
from other lips; but you have a right to know, since you have
received me with so great courtesy. My name is Bonaventure
de Lapp. I am a soldier and a wanderer by trade, and I have
come from Dunkirk, as you may see printed upon the boat."
"I thought that you had been shipwrecked!" said I.
But he looked at me with the straight gaze of an honest man.
"That is right," said he, "but the ship went from Dunkirk, and
this is one of her boats. The crew got away in the long boat,
and she went down so quickly that I had no time to put any-
thing into her. That was on Monday."
"And to-day's Thursday. You have been three days without
bite or sup."
"It is too long," said he. "Twice before I have been for two
days, but never quite so long as this. Well, I shall leave my boat
here, and see whether I can get lodgings in any of these little
grey houses upon the hillsides. Why is that great fire burning
over yonder?"
"It is one of our neighbours who has served against the
French. He is rejoicing because peace has been declared."
"Oh, you have a neighbour who has served then! I am glad;
for I, too, have seen a little soldiering here and there."
He did not look glad, but he drew his brows down over his
keen eyes.
"You are French, are you not?" I asked, as we all walked up
the hill together, he with his black bag in his hand and his long
blue cloak slung over his shoulder.
"Well, I am of Alsace." said he; "and, you know, they are
more German than French. For myself, I have been in so many

40
lands that I feel at home in an. I have been a great traveller;
and where do you think that I might find a lodging?"
I can scarcely tell now, on looking back with the great gap of
five-and-thirry years between, what impression this singular
man had made upon me. I distrusted him, I think, and yet I was
fascinated by him also; for there was something in his bearing,
in his look, and his whole fashion of speech which was entirely
unlike anything that I had ever seen. Jim Horscroft was a fine
man, and Major Elliott was a brave one, but they both lacked
something that this wanderer had. It was the quick alert look,
the flash of the eye, the nameless distinction which is so hard
to fix. And then we had saved him when he lay gasping on the
shingle, and one's heart always softens towards what one has
once helped.
"If you will come with me," said I, "I have little doubt that I
can find you a bed for a night or two, and by that time you will
be better able to make your own arrangements."
He pulled off his hat, and bowed with all the grace imagin-
able. But Jim Horscroft pulled me by the sleeve, and led me
aside.
"You 're mad, Jock," he whispered. "The fellow is a common
adventurer. What do you want to get mixed up with him for?"
But I was as obstinate a man as ever laced his boots, and if
you jerked me back it was the finest way of sending me to the
front.
"He's a stranger, and it's our part to look after him," said I.
"You'll be sorry for it," said he.
"Maybe so."
"If you don't think of yourself, you might think of your
cousin."
"Edie can take very good care of herself."
"Well, then, the devil take you, and you may do what you
like!" he cried, in one of his sudden flashes of anger. Without a
word of farewell to either of us, he turned off upon the track
that led up towards his father's house.
Bonaventure de Lapp smiled at me as we walked on
together.
"I didn't thought he liked me very much," said he. "I can see
very well that he has made a quarrel with you because you are
taking me to your home. What does he think of me then? Does

41
he think perhaps that I have stole the gold in my bag, or what
is it that he fears?"
"Tut, I neither know nor care," said I. "No stranger shall pass
our door without a crust and a bed?"
With my head cocked and feeling as if I was doing something
very fine, instead of being the most egregious fool south of Ed-
inburgh, I marched on down the path with my new acquaint-
ance at my elbow.

42
Chapter 6
A Wandering Eagle
My father seemed to be much of Jim Horscroft's opinion; for he
was not over warm to this new guest and looked him up and
down with a very questioning eye. He set a dish of vinegared
herrings before him, however, and I noticed that he looked
more askance than ever when my companion ate nine of them,
for two were always our portion. When at last he had finished
Bonaventure de Lapp's lids were drooping over his eyes, for I
doubt that he had been sleepless as well as foodless for these
three days. It was but a poor room to which I had led him, but
he threw himself down upon the couch, wrapped his big blue
cloak around him, and was asleep in an instant. He was a very
high and strong snorer, and, as my room was next to his, I had
reason to remember that we had a stranger within our gates.
When I came down in the morning I found that he had been
beforehand with me; for he was seated opposite my father at
the window-table in the kitchen, their heads almost touching,
and a little roll of gold pieces between them. As I came in my
father looked up at me, and I saw a light of greed in his eyes
such as I had never seen before. He caught up the money with
an eager clutch and swept it into his pocket.
"Very good, mister," said he; "the room's yours, and you pay
always on the third of the month."
"Ah! and here is my first friend," cried de Lapp, holding out
his hand to me with a smile which was kindly enough, and yet
had that touch of Patronage which a man uses when he smiles
to his dog. "I am myself again now, thanks to my excellent sup-
per and good night's rest. Ah! it is hunger that takes the cour-
age from a man. That most, and cold next."

43
 "Aye, that 's right," said my father; "I 've been out on the
moors in a snowdrift for six-and-thirty hours, and ken what it's
like."
"I once saw three thousand men starve to death," remarked
de Lapp, putting out his hands to the fire. "Day by day they got
thinner and more like apes, and they did come down to the
edge of the pontoons where we did keep them, and they
howled with rage and pain. The first few days their howls went
over the whole city, but after a week our sentries on the bank
could not hear them, so weak they had fallen."
"And they died!" I exclaimed.
"They held out a very long time. Austrian Grenadiers they
were, of the corps of Starowitz, fine stout men as big as your
friend of yesterday; but when the town fell there were but four
hundred alive, and a man could lift them three at a time as if
they were little monkeys. It was a pity. Ah! my friend, you will
do me the honours with madame and with mademoiselle."
It was my mother and Edie who had come into the kitchen.
He had not seen them the night before, but now it was all I
could do to keep my face as I watched him; for instead of our
homely Scottish nod, he bent up his back like a louping trout,
and slid his foot, and clapped his hand over his heart in the
queerest way. My mother stared, for she thought he was mak-
ing fun of, her; but Cousin Edie fell into it in an instant, as
though it had been a game, and away she went in a great
curtsy until I thought she would have had to give it up, and sit
down right there, in the middle of the kitchen floor. But no, she
up again as light as a piece of fluff, and we all drew up our
stools and started on the scones and milk and porridge.
He had a wonderful way with women, that man. Now if I
were to do it, or Jim Horscroft, it would look as if we were play-
ing the fool, and the girls would have laughed at us; but with
him it seemed to go with his style of face and fashion of
speech, so that one came at last to look for it; for when he
spoke to my mother or Cousin Edie — and he was never back-
ward in speaking — it would always be with a bow and a look
as if it would hardly be worth their while to listen to what he
had to say, and when they answered he would put on a face as
though every word they said was to be treasured up and re-
membered for ever. And yet, even while he humbled himself to

44
a woman, there was always a proud sort of look at the back of
his eye as if he meant to say that it was only to them that he
was so meek, and that he could be stiff enough upon occasion.
As to my mother, it was wonderful the way she softened to him,
and in half-an-hour she had told him all about her uncle, who
was a surgeon in Carlisle, and the highest of any upon her side
of the house. She spoke to him about my brother Rob's death,
which I had never heard her mention to a soul before, and he
looked as if the tears were in his eyes over it — he, who had
just told us how he had seen three thousand men starved to
death! As to Edie, she did not say much, but she kept shooting
little glances at our visitor, and once or twice he looked very
hard at her. When he had gone to his room after breakfast, my
father puffed out eight golden pounds and laid them on the
table.
"What think ye of that, Martha?" said he.
"You 've sold the twa black rups after all."
"No, but it's a month's pay for board and lodging from Jock's
friend, and as much to come every four weeks."
But my mother shook her head when she heard it.
"Two pounds a week is over much," said she; "and it is not
when the poor gentleman is in distress that we should put such
a price on his bit food."
"Tut!" cried my father, "he can very well afford it, and he
with a bag full of gold. Besides, it's his own proposing."
"No blessing will come from that money," said she.
"Why, woman, he's turned your head wi' his foreign ways of
speech!" cried my father.
"Aye, and it would be a good thing if Scottish men had a little
more of that kindly way," she said, and that was the first time
in all my life that I had ever heard her answer him back.
He came down soon and asked me whether I would come out
with him. When we were in the sunshine he held out a little
cross made of red stones, one of the bonniest things that ever I
had set eyes upon.
"These are rubies," said he, "and I got it at Tudela, in Spain.
There were two of them, but I gave the other to a Lithuanian
girl. I pray that you will take this as a memory of your exceed-
ingly kindness to me yesterday. It will fashion into a pin for
your cravat?"

45
 I could but thank him for the present, which was of more
value than anything I had ever owned in my life.
"I am off to the upper muir to count the lambs," said I;
"maybe you would care to come up with me and see something
of the country?"
He hesitated for a moment, and then he shook his head.
"I have some letters," he said, "which I ought to write as soon
as possible. I think that I will stay at quiet this morning and get
them written."
All forenoon I was wandering over the links, and you may
imagine that my mind was turning all the time upon this
strange man whom chance had drifted to our doors. Where did
he gain that style of his, that manner of command, that
haughty menacing glint of the eye. And his experiences to
which he referred so lightly, how wonderful the life must have
been which had put him in the way of them! He had been kind
to us, and gracious of speech, but still I could not quite shake
myself clear of the distrust with which I had regarded him. Per-
haps, after all, Jim Horscroft had been right and. I had been
wrong about taking him to West Inch.
When I got back he looked as though he had been born and
bred in the steading. He sat in the big wooden-armed ingle-
chair, with the black cat on his knee. His arms were out, and
he held a skein of worsted from hand to hand which my mother
was busily rolling into a ball. Cousin Edie was sitting near, and
I could see by her eyes that she had been crying.
"Hullo, Edie!" said I, "what's the trouble?"
"Ah! mademoiselle, like all good and true women, has a soft
heart," said he. "I didn't thought it would have moved her, or I
should have been silent. I have been talking of the suffering of
some troops of which I knew something when they were cross-
ing the Guadarama mountains in the winter of 1808. Ah! yes, it
was very bad, for they were fine men and fine horses. It is
strange to see men blown by the wind over the precipices, but
the ground was so slippy and there was nothing to which they
could hold. So companies all linked arms, and they did better
in that fashion; but one artilleryman's hand came off as I held
it, for he had had the frost-bite for three days."
I stood staring with my mouth open.

46
 "And the old Grenadiers, too, who were not so active as they
used to be, they could not keep up; and yet if they lingered the
peasants would catch them and crucify them to the barn doors
with their feet up and a fire under their heads, which was a
pity for these fine old soldiers. So when they could go no fur-
ther, it was interesting to see what they would do; for they
would sit down and say their prayers, sitting on an old saddle,
or their knapsacks, maybe, and then take off their boots and
their stockings, and lean their chin on the barrel of their mus-
ket. Then they would put their toe on the trigger, and pouf! it
was all over, and there was no more marching for those fine
old Grenadiers. Oh, it was very rough work up there on these
Guadarama mountains!"
"And what army was this?" I asked.
"Oh, I have served in so many armies that I mix them up
sometimes. Yes, I have seen much of war. Apropos I have seen
your Scotchmen fight, and very stout fantassins they make, but
I thought from them that the folk over here all wore — how do
you say it? — petticoats."
"Those are the kilts, and they wear them only in the
Highlands."
"Ah! on the mountains. But there is a man out yonder. May
be he is the one who your father said would carry my letters to
the post."
"Yes, he is Farmer Whitehead's man. Shall I give them to
him?"
"Well, he would be more careful of them if he had them from
your hand."
He took them from his pocket and gave them over to me. I
hurried out with them, and as I did so my eyes fell upon the ad-
dress of the topmost one. It was written very large and clear:
À. S. MAJESTÉ,
LE ROI DU SUÈDE,
STOCKHOLM.
I did not know very much French, but I had enough to make
that out. What sort of eagle was this which had flown into our
humble little nest?

47
Chapter 7
The Corriemuir Peel Tower
Well, it would weary me, and I am very sure that it would
weary you also, if I were to attempt to tell you how life went
with us after this man came under our roof, or the way in
which he gradually came to win the affections of every one of
us. With the women it was quick work enough; but soon he had
thawed my father too, which was no such easy matter, and had
gained Jim Horscroft's goodwill as well as my own. Indeed, we
were but two great boys beside him, for he had been every-
where and seen everything; and of an evening he would chat-
ter away in his limping English until he took us clean from the
plain kitchen and the little farm steading, to plunge us into
courts and camps and battlefields and all the wonders of the
world. Horscroft had been sulky enough with him at first; but
de Lapp, with his tact and his easy ways, soon drew him round,
until he had quite won his heart, and Jim would sit with Cousin
Edie's hand in his, and the two be quite lost in listening to all
that he had to tell us. I will not tell you all this; but even now,
after so long an interval, I can trace how, week by week and
month by month, by this word and that deed, he moulded us all
as he wished.
One of his first acts was to give my father the boat in which
he had come, reserving only the right to have it back in case he
should have need of it. The herring were down on the coast
that autumn, and my uncle before he died had given us a fine
set of nets, so the gift was worth many a pound to us. Some-
times de Lapp would go out in the boat alone, and I have seen
him for a whole summer day rowing slowly along and stopping
every half-dozen strokes to throw over a stone at the end of a
string. I could not think what he was doing until he told me of
his own freewill.

48
 "I am fond of studying all that has to do with the military,"
said he, "and I never lose a chance. I was wondering if it would
be a difficult matter for the commander, of an army corps to
throw his men ashore here."
"If the wind were not from the east," said I.
"Ah! quite so, if the wind were not from the east. Have you
taken soundings here?"
"No?"
"Your line of battleships would have to lie outside; but there
is water enough for a forty-gun frigate right up within musket
range. Cram your boats with tirailleurs, deploy them behind
these sandhills, then back with the launches for more, and a
stream of grape over their heads from the frigates. It could be
done! it could be done!"
His moustaches bristled out more like a cat's than ever, and I
could see by the flash of his eyes that he was carried away by
his dream.
"You forget that our soldiers would be upon the beach," said
I indignantly.
"Ta, ta, ta!" he cried. "Of course it takes two sides to make a
battle. Let us see now; let us work it out. What could you get
together? Shall we say twenty, thirty thousand. A few regi-
ments of good troops: the rest, pouf! — conscripts, bourgeois
with arms. How do you call them — volunteers?"
"Brave men!" I shouted.
"Oh yes, very brave men, but imbecile. Ah, mon Dieu, it is in-
credible how imbecile they would be! Not they alone, I mean,
but all young troops. They are so afraid of being afraid that
they would take no precaution. Ah, I have seen it! In Spain I
have seen a battalion of conscripts attack a battery of ten
pieces. Up they went, ah, so gallantly! and presently the hill-
side looked, from where I stood, like — how do you say it in
English? — a raspberry tart. And where was our fine battalion
of conscripts? Then another battalion of young troops tried it,
all together in a rush, shouting and yelling but what will shout-
ing do against a mitraille of grape? And there was our second
battalion laid out on the hillside. And then the foot chasseurs of
the Guard, old soldiers, were told to take the battery; and there
was nothing fine about their advance — no column, no shout-
ing, nobody killed — just a few scattered lines of tirailleurs and

49
pelotons of support; but in ten minutes the guns were silenced,
and the Spanish gunners cut to pieces. War must be learned,
my young friend, just the same as the farming of sheep."
"Pooh!" said I, not to be outcrowed by a foreigner. "If we had
thirty thousand men on the line of the hill yonder, you would
come to be very glad that you had your boats behind you."
"On the line of the hill?" said he, with a flash of his eyes
along the ridge. "Yes, if your man knew his business he would
have his left about your house, his centre on Corriemuir, and
his right over near the doctor's, house, with his tirailleurs
pushed out thickly in front. His horse, of course, would try to
cut us up as we deployed on the beach. But once let us form,
and we should soon know what to do. There's the weak point,
there at the gap. I would sweep it with my guns, then roll in my
cavalry, push the infantry on in grand columns, and that wing
would find itself up in the air. Eh, Jock, where would your vo-
lunteers be?"
"Close at the heels of your hindmost man," said I; and we
both burst out into the hearty laugh with which such discus-
sions usually ended.
Sometimes when he talked I thought he was joking, and at
other times it was not quite so easy to say. I well remember
one evening that summer, when he was sitting in the kitchen
with my father, Jim, and me, after the women had gone to bed,
he began about Scotland and its relation to England.
"You used to have your own king and your own laws made at
Edinburgh," said he. "Does it not fill you with rage and despair
when you think that it all comes to you from London now?"
Jim took his pipe out of his mouth.
"It was we who put our king over the English; so if there's
any rage, it should have been over yonder," said he.
This was clearly news to the stranger, and it silenced him for
the moment.
"Well, but your laws are made down there, and surely that is
not good," he said at last.
"No, it would be well to have a Parliament back in Edin-
burgh," said my father; "but I am kept so busy with the sheep
that I have little enough time to think of such things."

50
 "It is for fine young men like you two to think of it," said de
Lapp. "When a country is injured, it is to its young men that it
looks to avenge it."
"Aye! the English take too much upon themselves some-
times," said Jim.
"Well, if there are many of that way of thinking about, why
should we not form them into battalions and march them upon
London?" cried de Lapp.
"That would be a rare little picnic," said I, laughing. "And
who would lead us?"
He jumped up, bowing, with his hand on his heart, in his
queer fashion.
"If you will allow me to have the honour!" he cried; and then
seeing that we were all laughing, he began to laugh also, but I
am sure that there was really no thought of a joke in his mind.
I could never make out what his age could be, nor could Jim
Horscroft either. Sometimes we thought that he was an oldish
man that looked young, and at others that he was a youngish
man who looked old. His brown, stiff, close-cropped hair
needed no cropping at the top, where it thinned away to a shin-
ing curve. His skin, too, was intersected by a thousand fine
wrinkles, lacing and interlacing, and was all burned, as I have
already said, by the sun. Yet he was as lithe as a boy, and he
was as tough as whalebone, walking all day over the hills or
rowing on the sea without turning a hair. On the whole we
thought that he might be about forty or forty-five, though it
was hard to see how he could have seen so much of life in the
time. But one day we got talking of ages, and then he surprised
us.
I had been saying that I was just twenty, and Jim said that he
was twenty-seven.
"Then I am the most old of the three," said de Lapp.
We laughed at this, for by our reckoning he might almost
have been our father.
"But not by so much," said he, arching his brows. "I was nine-
and-twenty in December."
And it was this even more than his talk which made us under-
stand what an extraordinary life it must have been that he had
led. He saw our astonishment, and laughed at it.

51
 "I have lived! I have lived!" he cried. "I have spent my days
and my nights. I led a company in a battle where five nations
were engaged when I was but fourteen. I made a king turn pale
at the words I whispered in his car when I was twenty. I had a
hand in remaking a kingdom and putting a fresh king upon a
great throne the very year that I came of age. Mon Dieu, I have
lived my life!
That was the most that I ever heard him confess of his past
life, and he only shook his head and laughed when we tried to
get something more out of him. There were times when we
thought that he was but a clever impostor; for what could a
man of such influence and talents be loitering here in Berwick-
shire for? But one day there came an incident which showed us
that he had indeed a history in the past. You will remember
that there was an old officer of the Peninsula who lived no
great way from us, the same who danced round the bonfire
with his sister and the two maids. He had gone up to London
on some business about his pension and his wound money, and
the chance of having some work given him, so that he did not
come back until late in the autumn. One of the first days after
his return he came down to see us, and there for the first time
he clapped eyes upon de Lapp. Never in my life did I look upon
so astonished a face, and he stared at our friend for a long
minute without so much as a word. De Lapp looked back at him
equally hard, but there was no recognition in his eyes.
"I do not know who you are, sir," he said at last; "but you
look at me as if you had seen me before."
"So I have," answered the major.
"Never to my knowledge."
"But I 'll swear it!"
"Where then?"
"At the village of Astorga, in the year '8."
De Lapp started, and stared again at our neighbour.
"Mon Dieu, what a chance!" he cried. "And you were the Eng-
lish parliamentaire? I remember you very well indeed, sir. Let
me have a whisper in your ear."
He took him aside and talked very earnestly with him in
French for a quarter of an hour, gesticulating with his hands,
and explaining something, while the major nodded his old
grizzled head from time to time. At last they seemed to come to

52
some agreement, and I heard the major say "Parole d'honneur"
several times, and afterwards "Fortune de la guerre," which I
could very well understand, for they gave you a fine upbringing
at Birtwhistle's. But after that I always noticed that the major
never used the same free fashion of speech that we did to-
wards our lodger, but bowed when he addressed him, and
treated him with a wonderful deal of respect. I asked the major
more than once what he knew about him, but he always put it
off, and I could get no answer out of him.
Jim Horscroft was at home all that summer, but late in the
autumn he went back to Edinburgh again for the winter ses-
sion, and as he intended to work very hard and get his degree
next spring if he could, he said that he would bide up there for
the Christmas. So there was a great leave-taking between him
and Cousin Edie; and he was to put up his plate and to marry
her as soon as he had the right to practice. I never knew a man
love a woman more fondly than he did her, and she liked him
well enough in a way — for, indeed, in the whole of Scotland
she would not find a finer-looking man — but when it came to
marriage, I think she winced a little at the thought that all her
wonderful dreams should end in nothing more than in being
the wife of a country surgeon. Still there was only me and Jim
to choose out of, and she took the best of us.
Of course there was de Lapp also; but we always felt that he
was of an altogether different class to us, and so he didn't
count. I was never very sure at that time whether Edie cared
for him or not. When Jim was at home they took little notice of
each other. After he was gone they were thrown more togeth-
er, which was natural enough, as he had taken up so much of
her time before. Once or twice she spoke to me about de Lapp
as though she did not like him, and yet she was uneasy if he
were not in in the evening; and there was no one so fond of his
talk, or with so many questions to ask him, as she. She made
him describe what queens wore, and what sort of carpets they
walked on, and whether they had hairpins in their hair, and
how many feathers they had in their hats, until it was a wonder
to me how he could find an answer to it all. And yet an answer
he always had; and was so ready and quick with his tongue,
and so anxious to amuse her, that I wondered how it was that
she did not like him better.

53
 Well, the summer and the autumn and the best part of the
winter passed away, and we were still all very happy together.
We got well into the year 1815, and the great Emperor was
still eating his heart out at Elba; and all the ambassadors were
wrangling together at Vienna as to what they should do with
the lion's skin, now that they had so fairly hunted him down.
And we in our little corner of Europe went on with our petty
peaceful business, looking after the sheep, attending the Ber-
wick cattle fairs, and chatting at night round the blazing peat
fire. We never thought that what all these high and mighty
people were doing could have any bearing upon us; and as to
war, why everybody was agreed that the great shadow was lif-
ted from us for ever, and that, unless the Allies quarrelled
among themselves, there would not be a shot fired in Europe
for another fifty years.
There was one incident, however, that stands out very clearly
in my memory. I think that it must have happened about the
February of this year, and I will tell it to you before I go any
further.
You know what the border Peel castles are like, I have no
doubt. They were just square heaps built every here and there
along the line, so that the folk might have some place of pro-
tection against raiders and moss-troopers. When Percy and his
men were over the Marches, then the people would drive some
of their cattle into the yard of the tower, shut up the big gate,
and light a fire in the brazier at the top, which would be
answered by all the other Peel towers, until the lights would go
twinkling up to the Lammermuir Hills, and so carry the news
on to the Pentlands and to Edinburgh. But now, of course, all
these old keeps were warped and crumbling, and made fine
nesting places for the wild birds. Many a good egg have I had
for my collection out of the Corriemuir Peel Tower.
One day I had been a very long walk, away over to leave a
message at the Laidlaw Armstrongs, who live two miles on this
side of Ayton. About five o'clock, just before the sun set, I
found myself on the brae path with the gable end of West Inch
peeping up in front of me and the old Peel tower lying on my
left. I turned my eyes on the keep, for it looked so fine with the
flush of the level sun beating full upon it and the blue sea

54
stretching out behind; and as I stared, I suddenly saw the face
of a man twinkle for a moment in one of the holes in the wall.
Well I stood and wondered over this, for what could anybody
be doing in such a place now that it was too early for the nest-
ing season? It was so queer that I was determined to come to
the bottom of it; so, tired as I was, I turned my shoulder on
home, and walked swiftly towards the tower. The grass
stretches right up to the very base of the wall, and my feet
made little noise until I reached the crumbling arch where the
old gate used to be. I peeped through, and there was Bonaven-
ture de Lapp standing inside the keep, and peeping out
through the very hole at which I had seen his face. He was
turned half away from me, and it was clear that he had not
seen me at all, for he was staring with all his eyes over in the
direction of West Inch. As I advanced my foot rattled the
rubble that lay in the gateway, and he turned round with a
start and faced me.
He was not a man whom you could put out of countenance,
and his face changed no more than if he had been expecting
me there for a twelvemonth; but there was something in his
eyes which let me know that he would have paid a good price
to have me back on the brae path again.
"Hullo!" said I, "what are you doing here?"
"I may ask you that," said he.
"I came up because I saw your face at the window."
"And I because, as you may well have observed, I have very
much interest for all that has to do with the military, and, of
course castles are among them. You will excuse me for one mo-
ment, my dear Jack."
And he stepped out suddenly through the hole in the wall so
as to be out of my sight.
But I was very much too curious to excuse him so easily. I
shifted my ground swiftly to see what it was that he was after.
He was standing outside, and waving his hand frantically, as in
a signal.
"What are you doing?" I cried; and then, running out to his
side, I looked across the moors to see whom he was beckoning
to.
"You go too far, sir," said he, angrily; "I didn't thought you
would have gone so far. A gentleman has the freedom to act as

55
he choose without your being the spy upon him. If we are to be
friends, you must not interfere in my affairs."
"I don't like these secret doings," said I, "and my father
would not like them either."
"Your father can speak for himself, and there is no secret,"
said he, curtly. "It is you with your imaginings that make a
secret. Ta, ta, ta! I have no patience with such foolishness."
And without as much as a nod, he turned his back upon me,
and started walking swiftly to West Inch.
Well, I followed him, and in the worst of tempers; for I had a
feeling that there was some mischief in the wind, and yet I
could not for the life of me think what it all meant. Again I
found myself puzzling over the whole mystery of this man's
coming, and of his long residence among us. And whom could
he have expected to meet at the Peel Tower? Was the fellow a
spy, and was it some brother spy who came to speak with him
there? But that was absurd. What could there be to spy about
in Berwickshire? And besides, Major Elliott knew all about him,
and he would not show him such respect if there were anything
amiss.
I had just got as far as this in my thoughts when I heard a
cheery hail, and there was the major himself coming down the
hill from his house, with his big bulldog Bounder held in leash.
This dog was a savage creature, and had caused more than one
accident on the country-side; but the major was very fond of it,
and would never go out without it, though he kept it tied with a
good thick thong of leather. Well, just as I was looking at the
major, waiting for him to come up, he stumbled with his lame
leg over a branch of gorse, and in recovering himself he let go
his hold of the leash, and in an instant there was the beast of a
dog flying down the hillside in my direction.
I did not like it, I can tell you; for there was neither stick nor
stone about, and I knew that the brute was dangerous. The ma-
jor was shrieking to it from behind, and I think that the
creature thought that he was hallooing it on, so furiously did it
rush. But I knew its name, and I thought that maybe that might
give me the privileges of acquaintanceship; so as it came to me
with bristling hair and its nose screwed back between its two
red eyes, I cried out "Bounder! Bounder!" at the pitch of my

56
lungs. It had its effect, for the beast passed me with a snarl,
and flew along the path on the traces of Bonaventure de Lapp.
He turned at the shouting, and seemed to take in the whole
thing at a glance; but he strolled along as slowly as ever. My
heart was in my mouth for him, for the dog had never seen him
before; and I ran as fast as my feet would carry me to, drag it
away from him. But somehow, as it bounded up and saw the
twittering finger and thumb which de Lapp held out behind
him, its fury died suddenly away, and we saw it wagging its
thumb of a tail and clawing at his knee.
"Your dog then, major?" said he, as its owner came hobbling
up. "Ah, it is a fine beast — a fine, pretty thing!"
The major was blowing hard, for he had covered the ground
nearly as fast as I.
"I was afraid lest he might have hurt you," he panted.
"Ta, ta, ta!" cried de Lapp. "He is a pretty, gentle thing; I al-
ways love the dogs. But I am glad that I have met you, major;
for here is this young gentleman, to whom I owe very much,
who has begun to think that am a spy. Is it not so, Jack?"
I was so taken aback by his words that I could not lay my
tongue to an answer, but coloured up and looked askance, like
the awkward country lad that I was.
"You know me, major," said de Lapp, "and I am sure that you
will tell him that this could not be."
"No, no, Jack! Certainly not! certainly not!" cried the major.
"Thank you," said de Lapp. "You know me, and you do me
justice. And yourself, I hope that your knee is better, and that
you will soon have your regiment given you."
"I am well enough," answered the major; "but they will never
give me a place unless there is war, and there will be no more
war in my time."
"Oh, you think that!" said de Lapp with a smile. "Well, nous
verrons! We shall see, my friend!"
He whisked off his hat, and turning briskly he walked off in
the direction of West Inch. The major stood looking after him
with thoughtful eyes, and then asked me what it was that had
made me think that he was a spy. When I told him he said noth-
ing, but he shook his head, and looked like a man who was ill
at ease in his mind.

57
Chapter 8
The Coming of the Cutter
Never felt quite the same to our lodger after that little business
at the Peel Castle. It was always in my mind that he was hold-
ing a secret from me — indeed, that he was all a secret togeth-
er, seeing that he always hung a veil over his past. And when
by chance that veil was for an instant whisked away, we always
caught just a glimpse of something bloody and violent and
dreadful upon the other side. The very look of his body was ter-
rible. I bathed with him once in the summer, and I saw then
that he was haggled with wounds all over. Besides seven or
eight scars and slashes, his ribs on one side were all twisted
out of shape, and a part of one of his calves had been torn
away. He laughed in his merry way when he saw my face of
wonder.
"Cossacks! Cossacks!" said he, running his hand over his
scars. "And the ribs were broke by an artillery tumbril. It is
very bad to have the guns pass over one. Now with cavalry it is
nothing. A horse will pick its steps however fast it may go. I
have been ridden over by fifteen hundred cuirassiers and by
the Russian hussars of Grodno, and I had no harm from that.
But guns are very bad."
"And the calf?" I asked.
"Pouf! It is only a wolf bite," said he. "You would not think
how I came by it! You will understand that my horse and I had
been struck, the horse killed, and I with my ribs broken by the
tumbril. Well, it was cold — oh, bitter, bitter! — the ground like
iron, and no one to help the wounded, so that they froze into
such shapes as would make you smile. I too felt that I was
freezing, so what did I do? I took my sword, and I opened my
dead horse, so well as I could, and I made space in him for me
to lie, with one little hole for my mouth. Sapristi! It was warm

58
enough there. But there was not room for the entire of me, so
my feet and part of my legs stuck out. Then in the night, when
I slept, there came the wolves to eat the horse, and they had a
little pinch of me also, as you can see; but after that I was on
guard with my pistols, and they had no more of me. There I
lived, very warm and nice, for ten days?"
"Ten days I cried. "What did you eat?"
"Why, I ate the horse. It was what you call board and lodging
to me. But of course I have sense to eat the legs, and live in the
body. There were many dead about who had all their water
bottles, so I had all I could wish. And on the eleventh day there
came a patrol of light cavalry, and all was well."
It was by such chance chats as these — hardly worth repeat-
ing in themselves — that there came light upon himself and his
past. But the day was coming when we should know all and
how it came I shall try now to tell you.
The winter had been a dreary one, but with March came the
first signs of spring, and for a week on end we had sunshine
and winds from the south. On the 7th Jim Horscroft was to
come back from Edinburgh; for though the session ended with
the 1st, his examination would take him a week. Edie and I
were out walking on the sea beach on the 6th, and I could talk
of nothing but my old friend — for, indeed, he was the only
friend of my own age that I had at that time. Edie was very si-
lent, which was a rare thing with her; but she listened smiling
to all that I had to say.
"Poor old Jim!" said she once or twice under her breath.
"Poor old Jim!"
"And if he has passed," said I, "why, then of course he will
put up his plate and have his own house, and we shall be losing
our Edie."
I tried to make a jest of it and to speak lightly, but the words
still stuck in my throat.
"Poor old Jim!" said she again, and there were tears in her
eyes as she said it. "And poor old Jock!" she added, slipping her
hand into mine as we walked. "You cared for me a little bit
once also, didn't you, Jock? Oh, is not that a sweet little ship
out yonder!"
It was a dainty cutter of about thirty tons, very swift by the
rake of her masts and the lines of her bow. She was coming up

59
from the south under jib, foresail, and mainsail; but even as we
watched her all her white canvas shut suddenly in, like a kit-
tiewake closing her wings, and we saw the splash of her, an-
chor just under her bowsprit. She may have been rather less
than a quarter of a mile from the shore-so near that I could see
a tall man with a peaked cap, who stood at the quarter with a
telescope to his eye, sweeping it backwards and forwards
along the coast.
"What can they want here?" asked Edie.
"They are rich English from London," said I; for that was how
we explained everything that was above our comprehension in
the border counties. We stood for the best part of an hour
watching the bonny craft, and then, as the sun was lying low
on a cloudbank and there was a nip in the evening air, we
turned back to West Inch.
As you come to the farmhouse from the front, you pass up a
garden, with little enough in it, which leads out by a wicket-
gate to the road; the same gate at which we stood on the night
when the beacons were lit, the night that we saw Walter Scott
ride past on his way to Edinburgh. On the right of this gate, on
the garden side, was a bit of a rockery which was said to have
been made by my father's mother many years before. She had
fashioned it out of water-worn stones and sea shells, with
mosses and ferns in the chinks. Well, as we came in through
the gates my eyes fell upon this stone heap, and there was a
letter stuck in a cleft stick upon the top of it. I took a step for-
ward to see what it was, but Edie sprang in front of me, and
plucking it off she thrust it into her pocket.
"That's for me," said she, laughing.
But I stood looking at her with a face which drove the laugh
from her lips.
"Who is it from, Edie?" I asked.
She pouted, but made no answer.
"Who is it from, woman?" I cried. "Is it possible that you have
been as false to Jim as you were to me?"
"How rude you are, Jock!" she cried. "I do wish that you
would mind your own business."
"There is only one person that it could be from," I cried. "It is
from this man de Lapp!"
"And suppose that you are right, Jock?"

60
The coolness of the woman amazed and enraged me.
"You confess it!" I cried. "Have you, then, no shame left?"
"Why should I not receive letters from this gentleman?"
"Because it is infamous."
"And why?"
"Because he is a stranger."
"On the contrary," said she, "he is my husband!"

61
Chapter 9
The Doings at West Inch
I can remember that moment so well. I have heard from others
that a great, sudden blow has dulled their senses. It was not so
with me. On the contrary, I saw and heard and thought more
clearly than I had ever done before. I can remember that my
eyes caught a little knob of marble as broad as my palm, which
was imbedded in one of the grey stones of the rockery, and I
found time to admire its delicate mottling. And yet the look
upon my face must have been strange, for Cousin Edie
screamed, and leaving me she ran off to the house. I followed
her and tapped at the window of her room, for I could see that
she was there.
"Go away, Jock, go away!" she cried. "You are going to scold
me! I won't be scolded! I won't open the window! Go away!"
But I continued to tap.
"I must have a word with you!"
"What is it, then?" she cried, raising the sash about three
inches. "The moment you begin to scold I shall close it."
"Are you really married, Edie?"
"Yes, I am married."
"Who married you?"
"Father Brennan, at the Roman Catholic Chapel at Berwick."
"And you a Presbyterian?
"He wished it to be in a Catholic Church."
"When was it?"
"On Wednesday week."
I remembered then that on that day she had driven over to
Berwick, while de Lapp had been away on a long walk, as he
said, among the hills.
"What about Jim?" I asked.
"Oh, Jim will forgive me!"

62
 "You will break his heart and ruin his life."
"No, no; he will forgive me."
"He will murder de Lapp! Oh, Edie, how could you bring such
disgrace and misery upon us?"
"Ah, now you are scolding!" she cried, and down came the
window.
I waited some little time, and tapped, for I had much still to
ask her; but she would return no answer, and I thought that I
could hear her sobbing. At last I gave it up; and I was about to
go into the house, for it was nearly dark now, when I heard the
click of the garden gate. It was de Lapp himself.
But as he came up the path he seemed to me to be either
mad or drunk. He danced as he walked, cracked his fingers in
the air, and his eyes blazed like two will-o'-the-wisps. "Volti-
geurs!" he shouted; "Voltigeurs de la Garde!" just as he had
done when he was off his head; and then suddenly, "En avant!
en avant!" and up he came, waving his walking-cane over his
head. He stopped short when he saw me looking at him, and I
daresay he felt a bit ashamed of himself.
"Hola, Jock!" he cried. "I didn!t thought anybody was there. I
am in what you call the high spirits to-night."
"So it seems!" said I, in my blunt fashion. "You may not feel
so merry when my friend Jim Horscroft comes back to-
morrow."
"Ah! he comes back to-morrow, does he? And why should I
not feel merry?"
"Because, if I know the man, he will kill you."
"Ta, ta, ta!" cried de Lapp. "I see that you know of our mar-
riage. Edie has told you. Jim may do what he likes."
"You have given us a nice return for having taken you in."
"My good fellow," said he, "I have, as you say, given you a
very nice return. I have taken Edie from a life which is un-
worthy of her, and I have connected you by marriage with a
noble family. However, I have some letters which I must write
to-night, and the rest we can talk over to-morrow, when your
friend Jim is here to help us."
He stepped towards the door.
"And this was whom you were awaiting at the Peel Tower!" I
cried, seeing light suddenly.

63
 "Why, Jock, you are becoming quite sharp," said he, in a
mocking tone; and an instant later I heard the door of his room
close and the key turn in the lock.
I thought that I should see him no more that night; but a few
minutes later he came into the kitchen, where I was sitting
with the old folk.
"Madame," said he, bowing down with his hand over his
heart, in his own queer fashion, "I have met with much kind-
ness in your hands, and it shall always be in my heart. I didn't
thought I could have been so happy in the quiet country as you
have made me. You will accept this small souvenir; and you
also, sir, you will take this little gift, which I have the honour to
make to you."
He put two little paper packets down upon the table at their
elbows, and then, with three more bows to my mother, he
walked from the room.
Her present was a brooch, with a green stone set in the
middle and a dozen little shining white ones all round it. We
had never seen such things before, and did not know how to
set a name to them; but they told us afterwards at Berwick that
the big one was an emerald and the others were diamonds, and
that they were worth much more than all the lambs we had
that spring. My dear old mother has been gone now this many
a year, but that bonny brooch sparkles at the neck of my eldest
daughter when she goes out into company; and I never look at
it that I do not see the keen eyes and the long thin nose and
the cat's whiskers of our lodger at West Inch. As to my father,
he had a fine gold watch with a double case; and a proud man
was he as he sat with it in the palm of his hand, his ear stoop-
ing to hearken to the tick. I do not know which was best
pleased, and they would talk of nothing but what de Lapp had
given them.
"He's given you something more," said I at last.
"What then, Jock?" asked father.
"A husband for Cousin Edie," said I.
They thought I was daffing when I said that; but when they
came to understand that it was the real truth, they were as
proud and as pleased as if I had told them that she had married
the laird. Indeed, poor Jim, with his hard drinking and his fight-
ing, had not a very bright name on the country-side, and my

64
mother had often said that no good could come of such a
match. Now, de Lapp was, for all we knew, steady and quiet
and well-to-do. And as to the secrecy of it, secret marriages
were very common in Scotland at that time, when only a few
words were needed to make man and wife, so nobody thought
much of that. The old folk were as pleased, then, as if their
rent had been lowered; but I was still sore at heart, for it
seemed to me that my friend had been cruelly dealt with, and I
knew well that he was not a man who would easily put up with
it.

65
Chapter 10
The Return of the Shadow
I woke with a heavy heart the next morning, for I knew that Jim
would be home before long, and that it would be a day of
trouble. But how much trouble that day was to bring, or how
far it would alter the lives of all of us, was more than I had ever
thought in my darkest moments. But let me tell you it all, just
in the order that it happened.
I had to get up early that morning; for it was just the first
flush of the lambing, and my father and I were out on the
moors as soon as it was fairly light. As I came out into the pas-
sage a wind struck upon my face, and there was the house
door wide open, and the grey light drawing another door upon
the inner wall. And when I looked again there was Edie's room
open also, and de Lapp's too; and I saw in a flash what that giv-
ing of presents meant upon the evening before. It was a leave-
taking, and they were gone.
My heart was bitter against Cousin Edie as I stood looking in-
to her room. To think that for the sake of a new-comer she
could leave us all without one kindly word, or as much as a
handshake. And he, too! I had been afraid of what would hap-
pen when Jim met him; but now there seemed to be something
cowardly in this avoidance of him. I was angry and hurt and
sore, and I went out into the open without a word to my father,
and climbed up on to the moors to cool my flushed face.
When I got up to Corriemuir I caught my last glimpse of
Cousin Edie. The little cutter still lay where she had anchored,
but a rowboat was pulling out to her from the shore. In the
stem I saw a flutter of red, and I knew that it came from her
shawl. I watched the boat reach the yacht and the folk climb on
to her deck. Then the anchor came up, the white wings spread
once more, and away she dipped right out to sea. I still saw

66
that little red spot on the deck, and de Lapp standing beside
her. They could see me also, for I was outlined against the sky,
and they both waved their hands for a long time, but gave it up
at last when they found that I would give them no answer.
I stood with my arms folded, feeling as glum as ever I did in
my life, until their cutter was only a square hickering patch of
white among the mists of the morning. It was breakfast time
and the porridge upon the table before I got back, but I had no
heart for the food. The old folk had taken the matter coolly
enough. Though my mother had no word too hard for Edie; for
the two had never had much love for each other, and less of
late than ever.
"There's a letter here from him," said my father, pointing to a
note folded up on the table; "it was in his room. Maybe you
would read it to us."
They had not even opened it; for, truth to tell, neither of the
good folk were very clever at reading ink, though they could do
well with a fine large print.
It was addressed in big letters to "The good people of West
Inch;" and this was the note, which lies before me all stained
and faded as I write:
"My friends, — I didn't thought to have left you so suddenly,
but the matter was in other hands than mine. Duty and honour
have called me back to my old comrades. This you will doubt-
less understand before many days are past. I take your Edie
with me as my wife; and it may be that in some more peaceful
time you will see us again at West Inch. Meanwhile, accept the
assurance of my affection, and believe me that I shall never
forget the quiet months which I spent with you, at the time
when my life would have been worth a week at the utmost had
I been taken by the Allies. But the reason of this you may also
learn some day.
"Yours,
"BONAVENTURE DE LISSAC "(Colonel des Voltigeurs de la
Garde, et aide-de-camp de S.M.I. L'Empereur Napoleon.)"
I whistled when I came to those words written under his
name; for though I had long made up my mind that our lodger
could be none other than one of those wonderful soldiers of
whom we had heard so much, who had forced their way into
every capital of Europe, save only our own, still I had little

67
thought that our roof covered Napoleon's own aide-de-camp
and a colonel of his Guard.
"So," said I, "de Lissac is his name, and not de Lapp. Well,
colonel or no, it is as well for him that he got away from here
before Jim laid hands upon him. And time enough, too," I ad-
ded, peeping out at the kitchen window, "for here is the man
himself coming through the garden."
I ran to the door to meet him, feeling that I would have given
a deal to have him back in Edinburgh again. He came running,
waving a paper over his head; and I thought that maybe he had
a note from Edie, and that it was all known to him. But as he
came up I saw that it was a big, stiff, yellow paper which
crackled as he waved it, and that his eyes were dancing with
happiness.
"Hurrah, Jock!" he shouted. "Where is Edie? Where is Edie?"
"What is it, man?" I asked.
"Where is Edie?"
"What have you there?"
"It is my diploma, Jock. I can practise when I like. It is all
right. I want to show it to Edie."
"The best you can do is to forget all about Edie," said I.
Never have I seen a man s face change as his did when I said
those words.
"What! What d'ye mean, Jock Calder?" he stammered.
He let go his hold of the precious diploma as he spoke, and
away it went over the hedge and across the moor, where it
stuck flapping on a whin-bush; but he never so much as
glanced at it.
His eyes were bent upon me, and I saw the devil's spark
glimmer up in the depths of them.
"She is not worthy of you," said I.
He gripped me by the shoulder.
"What have you done?" he whispered. "This is some of your
hanky-panky! Where is she?"
"She 's off with that Frenchman who lodged here."
I had been casting about in my mind how I could break it
gently to him; but I was always backward in speech, and I
could think of nothing better than this.
"Oh!" said he, and stood nodding his head and looking at me,
though I knew very well that he could neither see me, nor the

68
steading, nor anything else. So he stood for a minute or more,
with his hands clenched and his head still nodding. Then he
gave a gulp in his throat, and spoke in a queer dry, rasping
voice.
"When was this?" said he.
"This morning."
"Were they married?
"Yes."
He put his hand against the doorpost to steady himself.
"Any message for me?"
"She said that you would forgive her."
"May God blast my soul on the day I do! Where have they
gone to?"
"To France, I should judge?"
"His name was de Lapp, I think?"
"His real name is de Lissac; and he is no less than a colonel
in Boney's Guards?"
"Ah! he would be in Paris, likely. That is well! That is well!"
"Hold up!" I shouted. "Father! Father! Bring the brandy!"
His knees had given way for an instant, but he was himself
again before the old man came running with the bottle.
"Take it away!" said he.
"Have a soop, Mister Horscroft," cried my father, pressing it
upon him. "It will give you fresh heart!"
He caught hold of the bottle and sent it flying over the
garden hedge.
"It's very good for those who wish to forget," said he; "I am
going to remember!"
"May God forgive you for sinfu' waste!" cried my father
aloud.
"And for well-nigh braining an officer of his Majesty's in-
fantry!" said old Major Elliott, putting his head over the hedge.
"I could have done with a nip after a morning's walk, but it is
something new to have a whole bottle whizz past my ear. But
what is amiss, that you all stand round like mutes at a
burying?"
In a few words I told him our trouble, while Jim, with a grey
face and his brows drawn down, stood leaning against the
doorpost. The major was as glum as we by the time I had fin-
ished, for he was fond both of Jim and of Edie."

69
 "Tut, tut!" said he. "I feared something of the kind ever since
that business of the Peel Tower. It's the way with the French.
They can't leave the women alone. But, at least, de Lissac has
married her, and that 's a comfort. But it's no time now to think
of our own little troubles, with all Europe in a roar again, and
another twenty years' war before us, as like as not."
"What dye mean?" I asked.
"Why, man, Napoleon's back from Elba, his troops have
flocked to him, and Louis has run for his life. The news was in
Berwick this morning."
"Great Lord!" cried my father. "Then the weary business is
all to do over again!"
"Aye, we thought we were out from the shadow, but it's still
there. Wellington is ordered from Vienna to the Low Countries,
and it is thought that the Emperor will break out first on that
side. Well, it's a bad wind that blows nobody any good. I've just
had news that I am to join the 71st as senior major."
I shook hands with our good neighbour on this, for I knew
how it had lain upon his mind that he should be a cripple, with
no part to play in the world.
"I am to join my regiment as soon as I can; and we shall be
over yonder in a month, and in Paris, maybe, before another
one is over."
"By the Lord, then, I'm with you, major!" cried Jim Horscroft.
"I'm not too proud to carry a musket, if you will put me in front
of this Frenchman?"
"My lad, I 'd be proud to have you serve under me," said the
major. "And as to de Lissac, where the Emperor is he will be."
"You know the man," said I. "What can you tell us of him?"
"There is no better officer in the French army, and that is a
big word to say. They say that he would have been a marshal,
but he preferred to stay at the Emperor's elbow. I met him two
days before Corunna, when I was sent with a flag to speak
about our wounded. He was with Soult then. I knew him again
when I saw him."
"And I will know him again when I see him!" said Horscroft,
with the old dour look on his face.
And then at that instant, as I stood there, it was suddenly
driven home to me how poor and purposeless a life I should
lead while this crippled friend of ours and the companion of my

70
boyhood were away in the forefront of the storm. Quick as a
flash my resolution was taken.
"I 'll come with you too, major," I cried.
"Jock! Jock!" said my father, wringing his hands.
Jim said nothing, but put his arm half round me and hugged
me. The major's eyes shone and he flourished his cane in the
air.
"My word, but I shall have two good recruits at my heels,"
said he. "Well, there's no time to be lost, so you must both be
ready for the evening coach."
And this was what a single day brought about; and yet years
pass away so often without a change. Just think of the altera-
tion in that four-and-twenty hours. De Lissac was gone. Edie
was gone. Napoleon had escaped. War had broken out. Jim
Horscroft had lost everything, and he and I were setting out to
fight against the French. It was all like a dream, until I
tramped off to the coach that evening, and looked back at the
grey farm steading and at the two little dark figures my mother
with her face sunk in her Shetland shawl, and my father wav-
ing his drover's stick to hearten me upon my way.

71
Chapter 11
The Gathering of the Nations
And now I come to a bit of my story that clean takes my breath
away as I think of it, and makes me wish that I had never taken
the job of telling it in hand. For when I write I like things to
come slow and orderly and in their turn, like sheep coming out
of a paddock. So it was at West Inch. But now that we were
drawn into a larger life, like wee bits of straw that float slowly
down some lazy ditch, until they suddenly find themselves in
the dash and swirl of a great river; then it is very hard for me
with my simple words to keep pace with it all. But you can find
the cause and reason of everything in the books about history,
and so I shall just leave that alone and talk about what I saw
with my own eyes and heard with my own ears.
The regiment to which our friend had been appointed was
the 71st Highland Light Infantry, which wore the red coat and
the trews, and had its depot in Glasgow town. There we went,
all three, by coach: the major in great spirits and full of stories
about the Duke and the Peninsula, while Jim sat in the comer
with his lips, set and his arms folded, and I knew that he killed
de Lissac, three times an hour in his heart. I could tell it by the
sudden glint of his eyes and grip of his hand. As to me, I did
not know whether to be glad or sorry; for home is home, and it
is a weary thing, however you may brazen it out, to feel that
half Scotland is between you and your mother.
We were in Glasgow next day, and the major took us down to
the depot, where a soldier with three stripes on his arm and a
fistful of ribbons from his cap, showed every tooth he had in
his head at the sight of Jim, and walked three times round him
to have the view of him, as if he had been Carlisle Castle.
Then he came over to me and punched me in the ribs and felt
my muscle, and was nigh as pleased as with Jim.

72
 "These are the sort, major, these are the sort," he kept say-
ing. "With a thousand of these we could stand up to Boney's
best."
"How do they run?" asked the major.
"A poor show," said he, "but they may lick into shape. The
best men have been drafted to America, and we are full of Mili-
tiamen and recruities."
"Tut, tut!" said the major. "We'll have old soldiers and good
ones against us. Come to me if you need any help, you two."
And so with a nod he left us, and we began to understand
that a major who is your officer is a very different person from
a major who happens to be your neighbour in the country.
Well, well, why should I trouble you with these things? I
could wear out a good quill-pen just writing about what we did,
Jim and I, at the depot in Glasgow; and how we came to know
our officers and our comrades, and how they came to know us.
Soon came the news that the folk of Vienna, who had been cut-
ting up Europe as if it had been a jigget of mutton, had flown
back, each to his own country, and that every man and horse in
their armies had their faces towards France. We heard of great
reviews and musterings in Paris too, and then that Wellington
was in the Low Countries, and that on us and on the Prussians
would fall the first blow. The Government was shipping men
over to him as fast as they could, and every port along the east
coast was choked with guns and horses and stores. On the
third of June we had our marching orders also, and on, the
same night we took ship from Leith, reaching Ostend the night
after. It was my first sight of a foreign land, and indeed most of
my comrades were the same, for we were very young in the
ranks. I can see the blue waters now, and the curling surf line,
and the long yellow beach, and queer windmills twisting and
turning — a thing that a man would not see from one end of
Scotland to the other. It was a clean, well-kept town, but the
folk were under-sized, and there was neither ale nor oatmeal
cakes to be bought amongst them.
From there we went on to a place called Bruges; and from
there to Ghent, where we picked up with the 52nd and the
95th, which were the two regiments that we were brigaded
with. It 's a wonderful place for churches and stonework is
Ghent, and indeed of all the towns we were in there was scarce

73
one but had a finer kirk than any in Glasgow. From there we
pushed on to Ath, which is a little village on a river, or a burn
rather, called the Dender. There we were quartered — in tents
mostly, for it was fine sunny weather — and the whole brigade
set to work at its drill from morning till evening. General
Adams was our chief, and Reynell was our colonel, and they
were both fine old soldiers; but what put heart into us most
was to think that we were under the Duke, for his name was
like a bugle call. He was at Brussels with the bulk of the army,
but we knew that we should see him quick enough if he were
needed.
I had never seen so many English together, and indeed I had
a kind of contempt for them, as folk always have if they live
near a border. But the two regiments that were with us now
were as good comrades as could be wished. The 52nd had a
thousand men in the ranks, and there were many old soldiers
of the Peninsula among them. They came from Oxfordshire for
the most part. The 95th were a rifle regiment, and had dark
green coats instead of red. It was strange to see them loading,
for they would put the ball into a greasy rag and then hammer
it down with a mallet, but they could fire both further and
straighter than we. All that part of Belgium was covered with
British troops at that time; for the Guards were over near
Enghien, and there were cavalry regiments on the further side
of us. You see, it was very necessary that Wellington should
spread out all his force, for Boney was behind the screen of his
fortresses, and of course we had no means of saying on what
side he might pop out, except that he was pretty sure to come
the way that we least expected him. On the one side he might
get between us and the sea, and so cut us off from England;
and on the other he might shove in between the Prussians and
ourselves. But the Duke was as clever as he, for he had his
horse and his light troops all round him, like a great spider's
web, so that the moment a French foot stepped across the bor-
der he could close up all his men at the right place.
For myself, I was very happy at Ath, and I found the folk very
kindly and homely. There was a farmer of the name of Bois, in
whose fields we were quartered, and who was a real good
friend to many of us. We built him a wooden barn among us in
our spare time, and many a time I and Jeb Seaton, my rear-

74
rank man, have hung out his washing, for the smell of the wet
linen seemed to take us both straight home as nothing else
could do. I have often wondered whether that good man and
his wife are still living, though I think it hardly likely, for they
were of a hale middle-age at the time. Jim would come with us
too, sometimes, and would sit with us smoking in the big Flem-
ish kitchen, but he was a different Jim now to the old one. He
had always had a hard touch in him, but now his trouble
seemed to have turned him to flint, and I never saw a smile
upon his face, and seldom heard a word from his lips. His
whole mind was set on revenging himself upon de Lissac for
having taken Edie from him, and he would sit for hours with
his chin upon his hands glaring and frowning, all wrapped in
the one idea. This made him a bit of a butt among the men at
first, and they laughed at him for it; but when they came to
know him better they found that he was not a good man to
laugh at, and then they dropped it.
We were early risers at that time, and the whole brigade was
usually under arms at the first flush of dawn. One morning — it
was the sixteenth of June — we had just formed up, and Gener-
al Adams had ridden up to give some order to Colonel Reynell
within a musket-length of where I stood, when suddenly they
both stood staring along the Brussels road. None of us dared
move our heads, but every eye in the regiment whisked round,
and there we saw an officer with the cockade of a general's
aide-de-camp thundering down the road as hard as a great
dapple-grey horse could carry him. He bent his face over its
mane and flogged at its neck with the slack of the bridle, as
though he rode for very fife.
"Hullo, Reynell!" says the general. "This begins to look like
business. What do you make of it?"
They both cantered their horses forward, and Adams tore
open the dispatch which the messenger handed to him. The
wrapper had not touched the ground before he turned waving
the letter over his head as if it had been a sabre.
"Dismiss!" he cried. "General parade and march in half-an-
hour."
Then in an instant all was buzz and bustle, and the news on
every lip. Napoleon had crossed the frontier the day before,
had pushed the Prussians before him, and was already deep in

75
the country to the east of us with a hundred and fifty thousand
men. Away we scuttled to gather our things together and have
our breakfast, and in an hour we had marched off and left Ath
and the Dender behind us for ever. There was good need for
haste, for the Prussians had sent no news to Wellington of
what was doing, and though he had rushed from Brussels at
the first whisper of it, like a good old mastiff from its kennel, it
was hard to see how he could come up in time to help the
Prussians.
It was a bright warm morning, and as the brigade tramped
down the broad Belgian road the dust rolled up from it like the
smoke of a battery. I tell you that we blessed the man that
planted the poplars along the sides, for their shadow was bet-
ter than drink to us. Over across the fields, both to the right
and the left, were other roads, one quite close, and the other a
mile or more from us. A column of infantry was marching down
the near one, and it was a fair race between us, for we were
each walking for all we were worth. There was such a wreath
of dust round them that we could only see the gun-barrels and
the bear-skins breaking out here and there, with the head and
shoulders of a mounted officer coming out above the cloud,
and the flutter of the colours. It was a brigade of the Guards,
but we could not tell which, for we had two of them with us in
the campaign. On the far road there was also dust and to
spare, but through it there flashed every now and then a long
twinkle of brightness, like a hundred silver beads threaded in a
line; and the breeze brought down such a snarling, clanging,
clashing kind of music as I had never listened to. If I had been
left to myself it would have been long before I knew what it
was; but our corporals and sergeants were all old soldiers, and
I had one trudging along with his halbert at my elbow, who
was full of precept and advice.
"That's heavy horse," said he. "You see that double twinkle?
That means they have helmet as well as cuirass. It 's the Roy-
als, or the Enniskillens, or the Household. You can hear their
cymbals and kettles. The French heavies are too good for us.
They have ten to our one, and good men too. You 've got to
shoot at their faces or else at their horses. Mind you that when
you see them coming, or else you 'll find a four-foot sword

76
stuck through your liver to teach you better. Hark! Hark!
Hark! There 's the old music again?"
And as he spoke there came the low grumbling of a cannon-
ade away somewhere to the east of us, deep and hoarse, like
the roar of some blood-daubed beast that thrives on the lives of
men. At the same instant there was a shouting of "Heh! heh!
heh!" from behind, and somebody roared, "Let the guns get
through!" Looking back, I saw the rear companies split sud-
denly in two and hurl themselves down on either side into the
ditch, while six cream-coloured horses, galloping two and two
with their bellies to the ground, came thundering through the
gap with a fine twelve-pound gun whirling and creaking behind
them. Behind were another, and another, four-and-twenty in
all, flying past us with such a din and clatter, the blue-coated
men clinging on to the gun and the tumbrils, the drivers curs-
ing and cracking their whips, the manes flying, the mops and
buckets clanking, and the whole air filled with the heavy
rumble and the jingling of chains. There was a roar from the
ditches, and a shout from the gunners, and we saw a rolling
grey cloud before us, with a score of busbies breaking through
the shadow. Then we closed up again, while the growling
ahead of us grew louder and deeper than ever.
"There's three batteries there," said the sergeant. "There's
Bull's and Webber Smith's, but the other is new. There's some
more on ahead of us, for here is the track of a nine-pounder,
and the others were all twelves. Choose a twelve if you want to
get hit; for a nine mashes you up, but a twelve snaps you like a
carrot." And then he went on to tell about the dreadful wounds
that he had seen, until my blood ran like iced water in my
veins, and you might have rubbed all our faces in pipeclay and
we should have been no whiter. "Aye, you'll look sicklier yet,
when you get a hatful of grape into your tripes," said he.
And then, as I saw some of the old soldiers laughing, I began
to understand that this man was trying to frighten us; so I
began to laugh also, and the others as well, but it was not a
very hearty laugh either.
The sun was almost above us when we stopped at a little
place called Hal, where there is an old pump from which I
drew and drank a shako full of water-and never did a mug of
Scotch ale taste as sweet. More guns passed us here, and

77
Vivian's Hussars, three regiments of them, smart men with
bonny brown horses, a treat to the eye. The noise of the can-
nons was louder than ever now, and it tingled through my
nerves just as it had done years before, when, with Edie by my
side, I had seen the merchant-ship fight with the privateers. It
was so loud now that it seemed to me that the battle must be
going on just beyond the nearest wood, but my friend the ser-
geant knew better.
"It's twelve to fifteen mile off," said he. "You may be sure the
general knows we are not wanted, or we should not be resting
here at Hal."
What he said proved to be true, for a minute later down
came the colonel with orders that we should pile arms and biv-
ouac where we were; and there we stayed all day, while horse
and foot and guns, English, Dutch, and Hanoverians, were
streaming through. The devil's music went on till evening,
sometimes rising into a roar, sometimes sinking into a
grumble, until about eight o'clock in the evening it stopped al-
together. We were eating our hearts out, as you may think, to
know what it all meant, but we knew that what the Duke did
would be for the best, so we just waited in patience.
Next day the Brigade remained at Hal in the morning, but
about mid-day came an orderly from the Duke, and we pushed
on once more until we came to a little village called Braine
something, and there we stopped; and time too, for a sudden
thunderstorm broke over us, and a plump of rain that turned
all the roads and the fields into bog and mire. We got into the
barns at this village for shelter, and there we found two strag-
glers — one from a kilted regiment, and the other a man of the
German Legion, who had a tale to tell that was as dreary as the
weather.
Boney had thrashed the Prussians the day before, and our
fellows had been sore put to it to hold their own against Ney,
but had beaten him off at last. It seems an old stale story to
you now, but you cannot think how we scrambled round those
two men in the barn, and pushed and fought, just to catch a
word of what they said, and how those who had heard were in
turn mobbed by those who had not. We laughed and cheered
and groaned all in turn as we heard how the 44th had received
cavalry in line, how the Dutch-Belgians had fled, and how the

78
Black Watch had taken the Lancers into their square, and then
had killed them at their leisure. But the Lancers had had the
laugh on their side when they crumpled up the 69th and car-
ried off one of the colours. To wind it all up, the Duke was in
retreat in order to keep in touch with the Prussians, and it was
rumoured that he would take up his ground and fight a big
battle just at the very place where we had been halted.
And soon we saw that this rumour was true; for the weather
cleared towards evening, and we were all out on the ridge to
see what we could see. It was such a bonny stretch of corn and
grazing land, with the crops just half green and half yellow,
and fine rye as high as a man's shoulder. A scene more full of
peace you could not think of, and look where you would over
the low curving corn-covered hills, you could see the little vil-
lage steeples pricking up their spires among the poplars.
But slashed right across this pretty picture was a long trail of
marching men — some red, some green, some blue, some black
— zigzagging over the plain and choking the roads, one end so
close that we could shout to them, as they stacked their mus-
kets on the ridge at our left, and the other end lost among the
woods as far as we could see. And then on other roads we saw
the teams of horses toiling and the dull gleam of the guns, and
the men straining and swaying as they helped to turn the
spokes in the deep, deep mud. As we stood there, regiment
after regiment and brigade after brigade took position on the
ridge, and ere the sun had set we lay in a line of over sixty
thousand men, blocking Napoleon's way to Brussels. But the
rain had come swishing down again, and we of the 71st rushed
off to our barn once more, where we had better quarters than
the greater part of our comrades, who lay stretched in the mud
with the storm beating upon them until the first peep of day.

79
Chapter 12
The Shadow on the Land
It was still drizzling in the morning, with brown drifting clouds
and a damp chilly wind. It was a queer thing for me as I
opened my eyes to think that I should be in a battle that day,
though none of us ever thought it would be such a one as it
proved to be. We were up and ready, however, with the first
light, and as we threw open the doors of our barn we heard the
most lovely music that I had ever listened to playing some-
where in the distance. We all stood in clusters hearkening to it,
it was so sweet and innocent and sad-like. But our sergeant
laughed when he saw how it pleased us all.
"Them are the French bands," said he; "and if you come out
here you'll see what some of you may not live to see again."
Out we went, the beautiful music still sounding in our ears,
and stood on a rise just outside the barn. Down below at the
bottom of the slope, about half a musket-shot from us was a
snug tiled farm with a hedge and a bit of an apple orchard. All
round it a line of men in red coats and high fur hats were work-
ing like bees, knocking holes in the wall and barring up the
doors.
"Them's the light companies of the Guards," said the ser-
geant. "They'll hold that farm while one of them can wag a fin-
ger. But look over yonder and you 'll see the camp fires of the
French."
We looked across the valley at the low ridge upon the further
side, and saw a thousand little yellow points of flame with the
dark smoke wreathing up slowly in the heavy air. There was
another farm-house on the further side of the valley, and as we
looked we suddenly saw a little group of horsemen appear on a
knoll beside it and stare across at us. There were a dozen Hus-
sars behind, and in front five men, three with helmets, one

80
with a long straight red feather in his hat, and the last with a
low cap.
"By God!" cried the sergeant, "that's him! That's Boney, the
one with the grey horse. Aye, I'll lay a month's pay on it."
I strained my eyes to see him, this man who had cast that
great shadow over Europe, which darkened the nations for
five-and-twenty years, and which had even fallen across our
out-of-the-world little sheep-farm, and had dragged us all —
myself, Edie, and Jim — out of the lives that our folk had lived
before us. As far as I could see, he was a dumpy square-
shouldered kind of man, and he held his double glasses to his
eyes with his elbows spread very wide out on each side. I was
still staring when I heard the catch of a man's breath by my
side, and there was Jim with his eyes glowing like two coals,
and his face thrust over my shoulder.
"That's he, Jock," he whispered.
"Yes, that's Boney," said I.
"No, no, it's he. This de Lapp or de Lissac, or whatever his
devil's name is. It is he."
Then I saw him at once. It was the horseman with the high
red feather in his hat. Even at that distance I could have sworn
to the slope of his shoulders and the way he carried his head. I
clapped my hands upon Jim's sleeve, for I could see that his
blood was boiling at the sight of the man, and that he was
ready for any madness. But at that moment Buonaparte
seemed to lean over and say something to de Lissac, and the
party wheeled and dashed away, while there came the bang of
a gun and a white spray of smoke from a battery along the
ridge. At the same instant the assembly was blown in our vil-
lage, and we rushed for our arms and fell in. There was a burst
of firing all along the line, and we thought that the battle had
begun; but it came really from our fellows cleaning their
pieces, for their priming was in some danger of being wet from
the damp night.
From where we stood it was a sight now that was worth com-
ing over the seas to see. On our own ridge was the chequer of
red and blue stretching right away to a village over two miles
from us. It was whispered from man to man in the ranks,
however, that there was too much of the blue and too little of
the red; for the Belgians had shown on the day before that

81
their hearts were too soft for the work, and we had twenty
thousand of them for comrades. Then, even our British troops
were half made up of militiamen and recruits; for the pick of
the old Peninsular regiments were on the ocean in transports,
coming back from some fool's quarrel with our kinsfolk of
America. But for all that we could see the bearskins of the
Guards, two strong brigades of them, and the bonnets of the
Highlanders, and the blue of the old German Legion, and the
red lines of Pack's brigade, and Kempt's brigade and the green
dotted riflemen in front, and we knew that come what might
these were men who would bide where they were placed, and
that they had a man to lead them who would place them where
they should bide.
Of the French we had seen little save the twinkle of their
fires, and a few horsemen here and there upon the curves of
the ridge; but as we stood and waited there came suddenly a
grand blare from their bands, and their whole army came
flooding over the low hill which had hid them, brigade after
brigade and division after division, until the broad slope in its
whole length and depth was blue with their uniforms and
bright with the glint of their weapons. It seemed that they
would never have done, still pouring over, and pouring over
while our men leaned on their muskets and smoked their pipes
looking down at this grand gathering and listening to what the
old soldiers who had fought the French before had to say about
them. Then when the infantry had formed in long deep masses
their guns came whirling and bounding down the slope, and it
was pretty to see how smartly they unlimbered and were ready
for action. And then at a stately trot down came the cavalry,
thirty regiments at the least, with plume and breastplate,
twinkling sword and fluttering lance, forming up at the flanks
and rear, in long shifting, glimmering lines.
"Them's the chaps!" cried our old sergeant. "They're gluttons
to fight, they are. And you see them regiments with the great
high hats in the middle, a bit behind the farm? That 's the
Guard, twenty thousand of them, my sons, and all picked men
— grey-headed devils that have done nothing but fight since
they were as high as my gaiters. They 've three men to our two,
and two guns to our one, and, by God! they 'll make you

82
recruities wish you were back in Argyle Street before they
have finished with you."
He was not a cheering man, our sergeant; but then he had
been in every fight since Corunna, and had a medal with seven
clasps upon his breast, so that he had a right to talk in his own
fashion.
When the Frenchmen had all arranged themselves just out of
cannon-shot we saw a small group of horsemen, all in a blaze
with silver and scarlet and gold, ride swiftly between the divi-
sions, and as they went a roar of cheering burst out from either
side of them, and we could see arms outstretched to them and
hands waving. An instant later the noise had died away, and
the two armies stood facing each other in absolute deadly si-
lence — a sight which often comes back to me in my dreams.
Then, of a sudden, there was a lurch among the men just in
front of us; a thin column wheeled off from the dense blue
clamp, and came swinging up towards the farm-house which
lay below us. It had not taken fifty paces before a gun banged
out from an English battery on our left, and the Battle of
Waterloo had begun.
It is not for me to try to tell you the story of that battle, and,
indeed, I should have kept far enough away from such a thing
had it not happened that our own fates, those of the three
simple folk who came from the border country, were all just as
much mixed up in it as those of any king or emperor of them
all. To tell the honest truth, I have learned more about that
battle from what I have read than from what I saw, for how
much could I see with a comrade on either side, and a great
white cloudbank at the very end of my firelock? It was from
books and the talk of others that I learned how the heavy cav-
alry charged, how they rode over the famous cuirassiers, and
how they were cut to pieces before they could get back. From
them, too, I learned all about the successive assaults, and how
the Belgians fled, and how Pack and Kempt stood firm. But of
my own knowledge I can only speak of what we saw during
that long day in the rifts of the smoke and the lulls of the firing,
and it is just of that that I will tell you.
We were on the right of the line and in reserve, for the Duke
was afraid that Boney might work round on that side and get at
him from behind; so our three regiments, with another British

83
brigade and the Hanoverians, were placed there to be ready
for anything. There were two brigades of light cavalry, too; but
the French attack was all from the front, so it was late in the
day before we were really wanted.
The English battery which fired the first gun was still
banging away on our left, and a German one was hard at work
upon our right, so that we were wrapped round with the
smoke; but we were not so hidden as to screen us from a line
of French guns opposite, for a score of round shot came piping
through the air and plumped right into the heart of us. As I
heard the scream of them past my ear my head went down like
a diver, but our sergeant gave me a prod in the back with the
handle of his halbert.
"Don't be so blasted polite," said he; "when you're hit, you
can bow once and for all."
There was one of those balls that knocked five men into a
bloody mash, and I saw it lying on the ground afterwards like a
crimson football. Another went through the adjutant's horse
with a plop like a stone in the mud, broke its back and left it ly-
ing like a burst gooseberry. Three more fell further to the
right, and by the stir and cries we could tell that they had all
told.
"Ah! James, you've lost a good mount," says Major Reed, just
in front of me, looking down at the adjutant, whose boots and
breeches were all running with blood.
"I gave a cool fifty for him in Glasgow," said the other. "Don't
you think, major, that the men had better lie down now that
the guns have got our range?"
"Tut!" said the other; "they are young, James, and it will do
them good."
"They 'll get enough of it before the day's done," grumbled
the other; but at that moment Colonel Reynell saw that the
rifles and the 52nd were down on either side of us, so we had
the order to stretch ourselves out too. Precious glad we were
when we could hear the shot whining like hungry dogs within a
few feet of our backs. Even now a thud and a splash every
minute or so, with a yelp of pain and a drumming of boots upon
the ground, told us that we were still losing heavily.
A thin rain was falling and the damp air held the smoke low,
so that we could only catch glimpses of what was doing just in

84
front of us, though the roar of the guns told us that the battle
was general all along the lines. Four hundred of them were all
crashing at once now, and the noise was enough to split the
drum of your ear. Indeed, there was not one of us but had a
singing in his head for many a long day afterwards. Just oppos-
ite us on the slope of the hill was a French gun, and we could
see the men serving her quite plainly. They were small active
men, with very tight breeches and high hats with great straight
plumes sticking up from them; but they worked like sheep-
shearers, ramming and sponging and training. There were
fourteen when I saw them first, and only four were left stand-
ing at the last, but they were working away just as hard as
ever.
The farm that they called Hougoumont was down in front of
us, and all the morning we could see that a terrible fight was
going on there, for the walls and the windows and the orchard
hedges were all flame and smoke, and there rose such shriek-
ing and crying from it as I never heard before. It was half
burned down, and shattered with balls, and ten thousand men
were hammering at the gates; but four hundred guardsmen
held it in the morning and two hundred held it in the evening,
and no French foot was ever set within its threshold. But how
they fought, those Frenchmen! Their lives were no more to
them than the mud under their feet. There was one — I can see
him now — a stoutish ruddy man on a crutch. He hobbled up
alone in a lull of the firing to the side gate of Hougoumont and
he beat upon it, screaming to his men to come after him. For
five minutes he stood there, strolling about in front of the gun-
barrels which spared him, but at last a Brunswick skirmisher in
the orchard flicked out his brains with a rifle shot. And he was
only one of many, for all day when they did not come in masses
they came in twos and threes with as brave a face as if the
whole army were at their heels.
So we lay all morning, looking down at the fight at Hougou-
mont; but soon the Duke saw that there was nothing to fear
upon his right, and so he began to use us in another way.
The French had pushed their skirmishers past the farm, and
they lay among the young corn in front of us popping at the
gunners, so that three pieces out of six on our left were lying
with their men strewed in the mud all round them. But the

85
Duke had his eyes everywhere, and up he galloped at that mo-
ment — a thin, dark, wiry man with very bright eyes, a hooked
nose, and big cockade on his cap. There were a dozen officers
at his heels, all as merry as if it were a foxhunt, but of the
dozen there was not one left in the evening.
"Warm work, Adams," said he as he rode up.
"Very warm, your grace," said our general.
"But we can outstay them at it, I think. Tut, tut, we cannot let
skirmishers silence a battery! Just drive those fellows out of
that, Adams."
Then first I knew what a devil's thrill runs through a man
when he is given a bit of fighting to do. Up to now we had just
lain and been killed, which is the weariest kind of work. Now it
was our turn, and, my word, we were ready for it. Up we
jumped, the whole brigade, in a four-deep line, and rushed at
the cornfield as hard as we could tear. The skirmishers
snapped at us as we came, and then away they bolted like
corncrakes, their heads down, their backs rounded, and their
muskets at the trail. Half of them got away; but we caught up
the others, the officer first, for he was a very fat man who
could not run fast. It gave me quite a turn when I saw Rob Ste-
wart, on my right, stick his bayonet into the man's broad back
and heard him howl like a damned soul. There was no quarter
in that field, and it was butt or point for all of them. The men's
blood was aflame, and little wonder, for these wasps had been
stinging all morning without our being able so much as to see
them.
And now, as we broke through the further edge of the corn-
field, we got in front of the smoke, and there was the whole
French army in position before us, with only two meadows and
a narrow lane between us. We set up a yell as we saw them,
and away we should have gone slap at them if we had been left
to ourselves; for silly young soldiers never think that harm can
come to them until it is there in their midst. But the Duke had
cantered his horse beside us as we advanced, and now he
roared something to the general, and the officers all rode in
front of our line holding out their arms for us to stop. There
was a blowing of bugles, a pushing and a shoving, with the ser-
geants cursing and digging us with their halberts; and in less
time than it takes me to write it, there was the brigade in three

86
neat little squares, all bristling with bayonets and in echelon,
as they call it, so that each could fire across the face of the
other.
It was the saving of us, as even so young a soldier as I was
could very easily see; and we had none too much time either.
There was a low rolling hill on our right flank, and from behind
this there came a sound like nothing on this earth so much as
the beat of the waves on the Berwick coast when the wind
blows from the east. The earth was all shaking with that dull
roaring sound, and the air was full of it.
"Steady, 71st! for God's sake, steady!" shrieked the voice of
our colonel behind us; but in front was nothing but the green
gentle slope of the grassland, all mottled with daisies and
dandelions.
And then suddenly over the curve we saw eight hundred
brass helmets rise up, all in a moment, each with a long tag of
horsehair flying from its crest; and then eight hundred fierce
brown faces all pushed forward, and glaring out from between
the ears of as many horses. There was an instant of gleaming
breastplates, waving swords, tossing manes, fierce red nostrils
opening and shutting, and hoofs pawing the air before us; and
then down came the line of muskets, and our bullets smacked
up against their armour like the clatter of a hailstorm upon a
window. I fired with the rest, and then rammed down another
charge as fast as I could, staring out through the smoke in
front of me, where I could see some long, thin thing which
flapped slowly backwards and forwards. A bugle sounded for
us to cease firing, and a whiff of wind came to clear the curtain
from in front of us, and then we could see what had happened.
I had expected to see half that regiment of horse lying on the
ground; but whether it was that their breastplates had shielded
them, or whether, being young and a little shaken at their com-
ing, we had fired high, our volley had done no very great harm.
About thirty horses lay about, three of them together within
ten yards of me, the middle one right on its back with its four
legs in the air, and it was one of these that I had seen flapping
through the smoke. Then there were eight or ten dead men and
about as many wounded, sitting dazed on the grass for the
most part, though one was shouting "Vive l'Empereur!" at the
top of his voice. Another fellow who had been shot in the thigh

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— a great black-moustached chap he was too — leaned his
back against his dead horse and, picking up his carbine, fired
as coolly as if he had been shooting for a prize, and hit Angus
Myres, who was only two from me, right through the forehead.
Then he ** ?? out with his hand to get another carbine that lay
near, but before he could reach it big Hodgson, who was the
pivot man of the Grenadier company, ran out and passed his
bayonet through his throat, which was a pity, for he seemed to
be a very fine man.
At first I thought that the cuirassiers had run away in the
smoke; but they were not men who did that very easily. Their
horses had swerved at our volley, and they had raced past our
square and taken the fire of the two other ones beyond. Then
they broke through a hedge, and coming on a regiment of Han-
overians who were in line, they treated them as they would
have treated us if we had not been so quick, and cut them to
pieces in an instant. It was dreadful to see the big Germans
running and screaming while the cuirassiers stood up in their
stimps to have a better sweep for their long, heavy swords, and
cut and stabbed without mercy. I do not believe that a hundred
men of that regiment were left alive; and the Frenchmen came
back across our front, shouting at us and waving their
weapons, which were crimson down to the hilts. This they did
to draw our fire, but the colonel was too old a soldier; for we
could have done little harm at the distance, and they would
have been among us before we could reload.
These horsemen got behind the ridge on our right again, and
we knew very well that if we opened up from the squares they
would be down upon us in a twinkle. On the other hand, it was
hard to bide as we were; for they had passed the word to a bat-
tery of twelve guns, which formed up a few hundred yards
away from us, but out of our sight, sending their balls just over
the brow and down into the midst of us, which is called a
plunging fire. And one of their gunners ran up on to the top of
the slope and stuck a handspike into the wet earth to give them
a guide, under the very muzzles of the whole brigade, none of
whom fired a shot at him, each leaving him to the other.
Ensign Samson, who was the youngest subaltern in the regi-
ment, ran out from the square and pulled down the handspike;
but quick as a Jack after a minnow, a lancer came flying over

88
the ridge, and he made such a thrust from behind that not only
his point, but his pennon too came out between the second and
third buttons of the lad's tunic. "Helen! Helen!" he shouted,
and fell dead on his face, while the lancer, blown half to pieces
with musket balls, toppled over beside him, still holding on to
his weapon, so that they lay together with that dreadful bond
still connecting them.
But when the battery opened there was no time for us to
think of anything else. A square is a very good way of meeting
a horseman, but there is no worse one of taking a cannon ball,
as we soon learned when they began to cut red seams through
us, until our ears were weary of the slosh and splash when
hard iron met living flesh and blood. After ten minutes of it we
moved our square a hundred paces to the right; but we left an-
other square behind us, for a hundred and twenty men and sev-
en officers showed where we had been standing. Then the guns
found us out again, and we tried to open out into line; but in an
instant the horsemen — lancers they were this time — were
upon us from over the brae.
I tell you we were glad to hear the thud of their hoofs, for we
knew that that must stop the cannon for a minute and give us a
chance of hitting back. And we hit back pretty hard too that
time, for we were cold and vicious and savage, and I for one
felt that I cared no more for the horsemen than if they had
been so many sheep on Corriemuir. One gets past being afraid
or thinking of one's own skin after a while, and you just feel
that you want to make some one pay for all you have gone
through. We took our change out of the lancers that time; for
they had no breastplates to shield them, and we cleared sev-
enty of them out of their saddles at a volley. Maybe, if we could
have seen seventy mothers weeping for their lads, we should
not have felt so pleased over it; but then, men are just brutes
when they are fighting, and have as much thought as two bull
pups when they've got one another by the throttle.
Then the colonel did a wise stroke; for he reckoned that this
would stave off the cavalry for five minutes, so he wheeled us
into line, and got us back into a deeper hollow out of reach of
the guns before they could open again. This gave us time to
breathe, and we wanted it too, for the regiment had been melt-
ing away like an icicle in the sun. But bad as it was for us, it

89
was a deal worse for some of the others. The whole of the
Dutch Belgians were off by this time helter skelter, fifteen
thousand of them, and there were great gaps left in our line
through which the French cavalry rode as pleased them best.
Then the French guns had been too many and too good for
ours, and our heavy horse had been cut to bits, so that things
were none too merry with us. On the other hand, Hougoumont,
a blood-soaked ruin, was still ours, and every British regiment
was firm; though, to tell the honest truth, as a man is bound to
do, there were a sprinkling of red coats among the blue ones
who made for the rear. But these were lads and stragglers, the
faint hearts that are found everywhere, and I say again that no
regiment flinched. It was little we could see of the battle; but a
man would be blind not to know that all the fields behind us
were covered with flying men. But then, though we on the
right wing knew nothing of it, the Prussians had begun to
show, and Napoleon had Set 20,000 of his men to face them,
which made up for ours that had bolted, and left us much as
we began. That was all dark to us, however; and there was a
time when the French horsemen had flooded in between us
and the rest of the army that we thought we were the only bri-
gade left standing, and had set our teeth with the intention of
selling our lives as dearly as we could.
At that time it was between four and five in the afternoon;
and we had had nothing to eat, the most of us, since the night
before, and were soaked with rain into the bargain. It had
drizzled off and on all day, but for the last few hours we had
not had a thought to spare either upon the weather or our hun-
ger. Now we began to look round and tighten our waistbelts,
and ask who was hit and who was spared. I was glad to see
Jim, with his face all blackened with powder, standing on my
right rear, leaning on his firelock. He saw me looking at him,
and shouted out to know if I were hurt.
"All right, Jim," I answered.
"I fear I'm here on a wild-goose chase," said he gloomily, "but
it's not over yet. By God, I 'll have him, or he 'll have me!"
He had brooded so much on his wrong, had poor Jim, that I
really believe that it had turned his head; for he had a glare in
his eyes as he spoke that was hardly human. He was always a

90
man that took even a little thing to heart, and since Edie had
left him I am sure that he was no longer his own master.
It was at this time of the fight that we saw two single fights,
which they tell me were common enough in the battles of old,
before men were trained in masses. As we lay in the hollow two
horsemen came spurring along the ridge right in front of us,
riding as hard as hoof could rattle. The first was an English
dragoon, his face right down on his horses mane, with a
French cuirassier, an old, grey-headed fellow, thundering be-
hind him, on a big black mare. Our chaps set up a hooting as
they came flying on, for it seemed shame to see an Englishman
run like that; but as they swept across our front we saw where
the trouble lay. The dragoon had dropped his sword, and was
unarmed, while the other was pressing him so close that he
could not get a weapon. At last, stung maybe by our hooting,
he made up his mind to chance it. His eye fell on a lance beside
a dead Frenchman, so he swerved his horse to let the other
pass, and hopping off cleverly enough, he gripped hold of it.
But the other was too tricky for him, and was on him like a
shot. The dragoon thrust up with the lance, but the other
turned it, and sliced him through the shoulder-blade. It was all
done in an instant, and the Frenchman cantering his horse up
the brae, showing his teeth at us over his shoulder like a
snarling dog.
That was one to them, but we scored one for us presently.
They had pushed forward a skirmish line, whose fire was to-
wards the batteries on our right and left rather than on us; but
we sent out two companies of the 95th to keep them in check.
It was strange to hear the crackling kind of noise that they
made, for both sides were using the rifle. An officer stood
among the French skirmishers — a tall, lean man with a mantle
over his shoulders — and as our fellows came forward he ran
out midway between the two parties and stood as a fencer
would, with his sword up and his head back. I can see him now,
with his lowered eyelids and the kind of sneer that he had upon
his face. On this the subaltern of the Rifles, who was a fine
well-grown lad, ran forward and drove full tilt at him with one
of the queer crooked swords that the riflemen carry. They
came together like two rams — for each ran for the other —
and down they tumbled at the shock, but the Frenchman was

91
below. Our man broke his sword short off, and took the other's
blade through his left arm; but he was the stronger man, and
he managed to let the life out of his enemy with the jagged
stump of his blade. I thought that the French skirmishers
would have shot him down, but not a trigger was drawn, and
he got back to his company with one sword through his arm
and half of another in his hand.

92
Chapter 13
The End of the Storm
Of all the things that seem strange in that battle, now that I
look back upon it, there is nothing that was queerer than the
way in which it acted on my comrades; for some took it as
though it had been their daily meat without question or
change, and others pattered out prayers from the first gunfire
to the last, and others again cursed and swore in a way that
was creepy to listen to. There was one, my own left-hand man,
Mike Threadingham, who kept telling about his maiden aunt,
Sarah, and how she had left the money which had been prom-
ised to him to a home for the children of drowned sailors.
Again and again he told me this story, and yet when the battle
was over he took his oath that he had never opened his lips all
day. As to me, I cannot say whether I spoke or not, but I know
that my mind and my memory were clearer than I can ever re-
member them, and I was thinking all the time about the old
folk at home, and about Cousin Edie with her saucy, dancing
eyes, and de Lissac with his cat's whiskers, and all the doings
at West Inch, which had ended by bringing us here on the
plains of Belgium as a cockshot for two hundred and fifty
cannons.
During all this time the roaring of those guns had been
something dreadful to listen to, but now they suddenly died
away, though it was like the lull in a thunderstorm when one
feels that a worse crash is coming hard at the fringe of it.
There was still a mighty noise on the distant wing, where the
Prussians were pushing their way onwards, but that was two
miles away. The other batteries, both French and English, were
silent, and the smoke cleared so that the armies could see a
little of each other. It was a dreary sight along our ridge, for
there seemed to be just a few scattered knots of red and the

93
lines of green where the German Legion stood, while masses of
the French appeared to be as thick as ever, though of course
we knew that they must have lost many thousands in these at-
tacks. We heard a great cheering and shouting from among
them, and then suddenly all their batteries opened together
with a roar which made the din of the earlier part seem noth-
ing in comparison. It might well be twice as loud, for every bat-
tery was twice as near, being moved right up to point blank
range with huge masses of horse between and behind them to
guard them from attack.
When that devil's roar burst upon our ears there was not a
man, down to the drummer boys, who did not understand what
it meant. It was Napoleon's last great effort to crush us. There
were but two more hours of light, and if we could hold our own
for those all would be well. Starved and weary and spent, we
prayed that we might have strength to load and stab and fire
while a man of us stood on his feet.
His cannon could do us no great hurt now, for we were on
our faces, and in an instant we could turn into a huddle of bay-
onets if his horse came down again. But behind the thunder of
the guns there rose a sharper, shriller noise, whirring and rat-
tling, the wildest, jauntiest, most stirring kind of sound.
"It's the pas-de-charge!" cried an officer. "They mean busi-
ness this time!"
And as he spoke we saw a strange thing. A Frenchman,
dressed as an officer of hussars, came galloping towards us on
a little bay horse. He was screeching "Vive le roi! Vive le roi!"
at the pitch of his lungs, which was as much as to say that he
was a deserter, since we were for the king and they for the em-
peror. As he passed us he roared out in English, "The Guard is
coming! The Guard is coming!" and so vanished away to the
rear like a leaf blown before a storm. At the same instant up
there rode an aide-de-camp, with the reddest face that ever I
saw upon mortal man.
"You must stop 'em, or we are done!" he cried to General
Adams, so that all our company could hear him.
"How is it going?" asked the general.
"Two weak squadrons left out of six regiments of heavies,"
said he, and began to laugh like a man whose nerves are
overstrung.

94
 "Perhaps you would care to join in our advance? Pray con-
sider yourself quite one of us," said the general, bowing and
smiling as if he were asking him to a dish of tea.
"I shall have much pleasure," said the other, taking off his
hat; and a moment afterwards our three regiments closed up,
and the brigade advanced in four lines over the hollow where
we had lain in square, and out beyond to the point whence we
had seen the French army.
There was little of it to be seen now, only the red belching of
the guns flashing quickly out of the cloudbank, and the black
figures — stooping, straining, mopping, sponging — working
like devils, and at devilish work. But through the cloud that
rattle and whirr rose ever louder and louder, with a deep-
mouthed shouting and the stamping of thousands of feet. Then
there came a broad black blurr through the haze, which
darkened and hardened until we could see that it was a hun-
dred men abreast, marching swiftly towards us, with high far
hats upon their heads and a gleam of brasswork over their
brows. And behind that hundred came another hundred, and
behind that another, and on and on, coiling and writhing out of
the cannon-smoke like a monstrous snake, until there seemed
to be no end to the mighty column. In front ran a spray of skir-
mishers, and behind them the drummers, and up they all came
together at a kind of tripping step, with the officers clustering
thickly at the sides and waving their swords and cheering.
There were a dozen mounted men too at their front, all shout-
ing together, and one with his hat held aloft upon his sword-
point. I say again, that no men upon this earth could have
fought more manfully than the French did upon that day.
It was wonderful to see them; for as they came onwards they
got ahead of their own guns, so that they had no longer any
help from them, while they got in front of the two batteries
which had been on either side of us all day. Every gun had
their range to a foot, and we saw long red lines scored right
down the dark column as it advanced. So near were they, and
so closely did they march, that every shot ploughed through
ten files of them, and yet they closed up and came on with a
swing and dash that was fine to see. Their head was turned
straight for ourselves, while the 95th overlapped them on one
side and the 52nd on the other.

95
 I shall always think that if we had waited so the Guard would
have broken us; for how could a four-deep line stand against
such a column? But at that moment Colburne, the colonel of
the 52nd, swung his right flank round so as to bring it on the
side of the column, which brought the Frenchmen to a halt.
Their front line was forty paces from us at the moment, and we
had a good look at them. It was funny to me to remember that I
had always thought of Frenchmen as small men; for there was
not one of that first company who could not have picked me up
as if I had been a child, and their great hats made them look
taller yet. They were hard, wizened, wiry fellows too, with
fierce puckered eyes and bristling moustaches, old soldiers
who had fought and fought, week in, week out, for many a
year. And then, as I stood with my finger upon the trigger wait-
ing for the word to fire, my eye fell full upon the mounted of-
ficer with his hat upon his sword, and I saw that it was de
Lissac.
I saw it, and Jim did too. I heard a shout, and saw him rush
forward madly at the French column; and, as quick as thought,
the whole brigade took their cue from him, officers and all, and
flung themselves upon the Guard in front, while our comrades
charged them on the flanks. We had been waiting for the or-
der, and they all thought now that it had been given; but you
may take my word for it, that Jim Horscroft was the real leader
of the brigade when we charged the Old Guard.
God knows what happened during that mad five minutes. I
remember putting my musket against a blue coat and pulling
the trigger, and that the man could not fall because he was so
wedged in the crowd; but I saw a horrid blotch upon the cloth,
and a thin curl of smoke from it as if it had taken fire. Then I
found myself thrown up against two big Frenchmen, and so
squeezed together, the three of us, that we could not raise a
weapon. One of them, a fellow with a very large nose, got his
hand up to my throat, and I felt that I was a chicken in his
grasp. "Rendez-vous, coquin; rendez-vous!" said he, and then
suddenly doubled up with a scream, for someone had stabbed
him in the bowels with a bayonet. There was very little firing
after the first sputter; but there was the crash of butt against
barrel the short cries of stricken men, and the roaring of the
officers. And then, suddenly, they began to give ground-slowly,

96
sullenly, step by step, but still to give ground. Ah! it was worth
all that we had gone through, the thrill of that moment, when
we felt that they were going to break. There was one French-
man before me, a sharp-faced, dark-eyed man, who was load-
ing and firing as quietly as if he were at practice, dwelling
upon his aim, and looking round first to try and pick of an of-
ficer. I remember that it struck me that to kill so cool a man as
that would be a good service, and I rushed at him and drove
my bayonet into him. He turned as I struck him and fired full
into my face, and the bullet left a weal across my cheek which
will mark me to my dying day. I tripped over him as he fell, and
two others tumbling over me I was half smothered in the heap.
When at last I struggled out, and cleared my eyes, which were
half full of powder, I saw that the column had fairly broken,
and was shredding into groups of men, who were either run-
ning for their lives or were fighting back to back in a vain at-
tempt to check the brigade, which was still sweeping onwards.
My face felt as if a red-hot iron had been laid across it; but I
had the use of my limbs, so jumping over the litter of dead and
mangled men, I scampered after my regiment, and fell in upon
the right flank.
Old Major Elliott was there, limping along, for his horse had
been shot, but none the worse in himself. He saw me come up,
and nodded, but it was too busy a time for words. The brigade
was still advancing, but the general rode in front of me with his
chin upon his shoulder, looking back at the British position.
"There is no general advance," said he; "but I'm not going
back."
"The Duke of Wellington has won a great victory," cried the
aide-de-camp, in a solemn voice; and then, his feelings getting
the better of him, he added, "if the damned fool would only
push on!" — which set us all laughing in the flank company.
But now anyone could see that the French army was break-
ing up. The columns and squadrons which had stood so
squarely all day were now all ragged at the edges; and where
there had been thick fringes of skirmishers in front, there were
now a spray of stragglers in the rear. The Guard thinned out in
front of us as we pushed on, and we found twelve guns looking
us in the face, but we were over them in a moment; and I saw
our youngest subaltern, next to him who had been killed by the

97
lancer, scribbling great 71's with a lump of chalk upon them,
like the schoolboy that he was. It was at that moment that we
heard a roar of cheering behind us, and saw the whole British
army flood over the crest of the ridge, and come pouring down
upon the remains of their enemies. The guns, too, came bound-
ing and rattling forward, and our light cavalry — as much as
was left of it — kept pace with our brigade upon the right.
There was no battle after that. The advance went on without a
check, until our army stood lined upon the very ground which
the French had held in the morning. Their guns were ours,
their foot were a rabble spread over the face of the country,
and their gallant cavalry alone was able to preserve some sort
of order and to draw off unbroken from the field. Then at last,
just as the night began to gather, our weary and starving men
were able to let the Prussians take the job over, and to pile
their arms upon the ground that they had won. That was as
much as I saw or can tell you about the Battle of Waterloo, ex-
cept that I ate a two-pound rye loaf for my supper that night,
with as much salt meat as they would let me have, and a good
pitcher of red wine, until I had to bore a new hole at the end of
my belt, and then it fitted me as tight as a hoop to a barrel.
After that I lay down in the straw where the rest of the com-
pany were sprawling, and in less than a minute I was in a dead
sleep.

98
Chapter 14
The Tally of Death
Day was breaking, and the first grey light had just begun to
steal through the long thin slits in the walls of our barn, when
someone shook me hard by the shoulder, and up I jumped. I
had the thought in my stupid, sleepy brain that the cuirassiers
were upon us, and I gripped hold of a halbert that was leaning
against the wall; but then, as I saw the long lines of sleepers, I
remembered where I was. But I can tell you that I stared when
I saw that it was none other than Major Elliott that had roused
me up. His face was very grave, and behind him stood two ser-
geants, with long slips of paper and pencils in their hands.
"Wake up laddie," said the major, quite in his old easy fash-
ion, as if we were back on Corriemuir again.
"Yes, major?" I stammered.
I want you to come with me. I feel that I owe something to
you two lads, for it was I that took you from your homes. Jim
Horscroft is missing."
I gave a start at that, for what with the rush and the hunger
and the weariness I had never given a thought to my friend
since the time that he had rushed at the French Guards with
the whole regiment at his heels.
"I am going out now to take a tally of our losses," said the
major; "and if you cared to come with me, I should be very glad
to have you."
So off we set, the major, the two sergeants, and I; and oh!
but it was a dreadful, dreadful sight! — so much so, that even
now, after so many years, I had rather say as little of it as pos-
sible. It was bad to see in the heat of fight; but now in the cold
morning, with no cheer or drum-tap or bugle blare, all the
glory had gone out of it, and it was just one huge butcher's
shop, where poor devils had been ripped and burst and

99
smashed, as though we had tried to make a mock of God's im-
age. There on the ground one could read every stage of
yesterday's fight — the dead footmen that lay in squares and
the fringe of dead horsemen that had charged them, and above
on the slope the dead gunners, who lay round their broken
piece. The Guards' column had left a streak right up the field
like the trail of a snail, and at the head of it the blue coats were
lying heaped upon the red ones where that fierce tug had been
before they took their backward step.
And the very first thing that I saw when I got there was Jim
himself. He was lying on the broad of his back, his face turned
up towards the sky, and all the passion and the trouble seemed
to have passed clean away from him, so that he looked just like
the old Jim as I had seen him in his cot a hundred times when
we were schoolmates together. I had given a cry of grief at the
sight of him; but when I came to look again upon his face, and
to see how much happier he looked in death than I could ever
have hoped to see him in life, it was hard to mourn for him.
Two French bayonets had passed through his chest, and he
had died in an instant, and without pain, if one could believe
the smile upon his lips.
The major and I were raising his head in the hope that some
flutter of life might remain, when I heard a well-remembered
voice at my side, and there was de Lissac leaning upon his el-
bow among a litter of dead guardsmen. He had a great blue
coat muffled round him, and the hat with the high red plume
was lying on the ground beside him. He was very pale, and had
dark blotches under his eyes, but otherwise he was as he had
ever been, with the keen, hungry nose, the wiry moustache,
and the close-cropped head thinning away to baldness upon
the top. His eyelids had always drooped, but now one could
hardly see the glint of his eyes from beneath them.
"Hola, Jock!" he cried. "I didn't thought to have seen you
here, and yet I might have known it, too, when I saw friend
Jim."
"It is you that has brought all this trouble," said I.
"Ta, ta, ta!" he cried, in his old impatient fashion. "It is all ar-
ranged for us. When I was in Spain I learned to believe in Fate.
It is Fate which has sent you here this morning."

100
 "This man's blood lies at your door," said I, with my hand on
poor Jim's shoulder.
"And mine on his, so we have paid our debts."
He flung open his mantle as he spoke, and I saw with horror
that a great black lump of clotted blood was hanging out of his
side.
"This is my thirteenth and last," said he, with a smile. "They
say that thirteen is an unlucky number. Could you spare me a
drink from your flask?"
The major had some brandy and water. De Lissac supped it
up eagerly. His eyes brightened, and a little fleck of colour
came back in each of his haggard cheeks.
"It was Jim did this!" said he. "I heard someone calling my
name, and there he was with his gun against my tunic. Two of
my men cut him down just as he fired. Well, well, Edie was
worth it all! You will be in Paris in less than a month, Jock, and
you will see her. You will find her at No. 11 of the Rue Mir-
omesnil, which is near to the Madelaine. Break it very gently to
her, Jock, for you cannot think how she loved me. Tell her that
all I have are in the two black trunks, and that Antoine has the
keys. You will not forget?"
"I will remember."
"And madame, your mother? I trust that you have left her
very well. And monsieur, too, your father? Bear them my distin-
guished regards!"
Even now as death closed in upon him he gave the old bow
and wave as he sent his greetings to my mother.
"Surely," said I, "your wound may not be so serious as you
think. I could bring the surgeon of our regiment to you!"
"My dear Jock, I have not been giving and taking wounds this
fifteen years without knowing when one has come home. But it
is as well, for I know that all is ended for my little man, and I
had rather go with my Voltigeurs than remain to be an exile
and a beggar. Besides, it is quite certain that the Allies would
have shot me, so I have saved myself from that humiliation."
"The Allies, sir," said the major, with some heat, "would be
guilty of no such barbarous action."
But de Lissac shook his head, with the same sad smile.
"You do not know, major," said he. "Do you suppose that I
should have fled to Scotland and changed my name if I had not

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more to fear than my comrades who remained in Paris? I was
anxious to live, for I was sure that my little man would come
back. Now I had rather die, for he will never lead an army
again. But I have done things that could not be forgiven. It was
I that led the party which took and shot the Duc d'Enghien. It
was I —— Ah, mon Dieu! Edie, Edie, ma chèrie!"
He threw out both his hands, with all the fingers feeling and
quivering in the air. Then he let them drop heavily in front of
him, and his chin fell forward upon his chest. One of our ser-
geants laid him gently down, and the other stretched the big
blue mantle over him; and so we left those two whom Fate had
so strangely brought together, the Scotchman and the French-
man, lying silently and peacefully within hand's touch of each
other, upon the blood-soaked hillside near Hougoumont.

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Chapter 15
The End of It
And now I have very nearly come to the end of it all, and pre-
cious glad I shall be to find myself there; for I began this old
memory with a light heart, thinking that it would give me some
work for the long summer evenings, but as I went on I
wakened a thousand sleeping sorrows and half-forgotten
griefs, and now my soul is all as raw as the hide of an ill-
sheared sheep. If I come safely out of it I will swear never to
set pen to paper again, for it is so easy at first, like walking in-
to a shelving stream, and then before you can look round you
are off your feet and down in a hole, and can struggle out as
best you may.
We buried Jim and de Lissac with four hundred and thirty-
one others of the French Guards and our own Light Infantry in
a single trench. Ah! if you could sow a brave man as you sow a
seed, there should be a fine crop of heroes coming up there
some day! Then we left that bloody battle-field behind us for
ever, and with our brigade we marched on over the French
border on our way to Paris.
I had always been brought up during all these years to look
upon the French as very evil folk, and as we only heard of them
in connection with fightings and slaughterings, by land and by
sea, it was natural enough to think that they were vicious by
nature and ill to meet with. But then, after all, they had only
heard of us in the same fashion, and so, no doubt, they had just
the same idea of us. But when we came to go through their
country, and to see their bonny little steadings, and the douce
quiet folk at work in the fields, and the women knitting by the
roadside, and the old granny with a big white mutch smacking
the baby to teach it manners, it was all so home-like that I
could not think why it was that we had been hating and fearing

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these good people for so long. But I suppose that in truth it
was really the man who was over them that we hated, and now
that he was gone and his great shadow was cleared from the
land, all was brightness once more.
We jogged along happily enough through the loveliest coun-
try that ever I set my eyes on, until we came to the great city,
where we thought that maybe there would be a battle, for
there are so many folk in it that if only one in twenty comes out
it would make a fine army. But by that time they had seen that
it was a pity to spoil the whole country just for the sake of one
man, and so they had told him that he must shift for himself in
the future. The next we heard was that he had surrendered to
the British, and that the gates of Paris were open to us, which
was very good news to me, for I could get along very well just
on the one battle that I had had.
But there were plenty of folk in Paris now who loved Boney;
and that was natural when you think of the glory that he had
brought them, and how he had never asked his army to go
where he would not go himself. They had stern enough faces
for us, I can tell you, when we marched in, and we of Adams'
brigade were the very first who set foot in the city. We passed
over a bridge which they call Neuilly, which is easier to write
than to say, and then through a fine park — the Bois de
Boulogne, and so into the Champs d'Elysées. There we bivou-
acked, and pretty soon the streets were so full of Prussians and
English that it became more like a camp than a city.
The very first time that I could get away I went with Rob Ste-
wart, of my company — for we were only allowed to go about in
couples — to the Rue Miromesnil. Rob waited in the hall, and I
was shown upstairs; and as I put my foot over the mat, there
was Cousin Edie, just the same as ever, staring at me with
those wild eyes of hers. For a moment she did not recognise
me, but when she did she just took three steps forward and
sprang at me, with her two arms round my neck.
"Oh, my dear old Jock," she cried, "how fine you look in a red
coat!"
"Yes, I am a soldier now, Edie," said I, very stiffly; for as I
looked at her pretty face, I seemed to see behind it that other
face which had looked up to the morning sky on the Belgium
battle-field.

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 "Fancy that!" she cried. "What are you then, Jock? A general?
A captain?"
"No, I am a private?"
"What! Not one of the common people who carry guns?"
"Yes, I carry a gun."
"Oh, that is not nearly so interesting," said she. And she went
back to the sofa from which she had risen. It was a wonderful
room, all silk and velvet and shiny things, and I felt inclined to
go back to give my boots another rub. As Edie sat down again,
I saw that she was all in black, and so I knew that she had
heard of de Lissac's death.
"I am glad to see that you know all," said I, for I am a clumsy
hand at breaking things. "He said that you were to keep
whatever was in the boxes, and that Antoine had the keys."
"Thank you, Jock, thank you," said she. "It was like your kind-
ness to bring the message. I heard of it nearly a week ago. I
was mad for the time — quite mad. I shall wear mourning all
my days, although you can see what a fright it makes me look.
Ah! I shall never get over it. I shall take the veil and die in a
convent."
"If you please, madame," said a maid, looking in, "the Count
de Beton wishes to see you."
"My dear Jock," said Edie, jumping up, "this is very import-
ant. I am so sorry to cut our chat short, but I am sure that you
will come to see me again, will you not, when I am less desol-
ate? And would you mind going out by the side door instead of
the main one? Thank you, you dear old Jock; you were always
such a good boy, and did exactly what you were told."
And that was the last that I was ever to see of Cousin Edie.
She stood in the sunlight with the old challenge in her eyes,
and flash of her teeth; and so I shall always remember her,
shining and unstable, like a drop of quicksilver. As I joined my
comrade in the street below, I saw a grand carriage and pair at
the door, and I knew that she had asked me to slip out so that
her grand new friends might never know what common people
she had been associated with in her childhood. She had never
asked for Jim, nor for my father and mother who had been so
kind to her. Well, it was just her way, and she could no more
help it than a rabbit can help wagging its scut, and yet it made
me heavy-hearted to think of it. Two months later I heard that

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she had married this same Count de Beton, and she died in
child-bed a year or two later.
And as for us, our work was done, for the great shadow had
been cleared away from Europe, and should no longer be
thrown across the breadth of the lands, over peaceful farms
and little villages, darkening the lives which should have been
so happy. I came back to Corriemuir after I had bought my dis-
charge, and there, when my father died, I took over the sheep-
farm, and married Lucy Deane, of Berwick, and have brought
up seven children, who are all taller than their father, and take
mighty good care that he shall not forget it. But in the quiet,
peaceful days that pass now, each as like the other as so many
Scotch tups, I can hardly get the young folks to believe that
even here we have had our romance, when Jim and I went a-
wooing, and the man with the cat's whiskers came up from the
sea.

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